


Lavender Eyes

by Raufnir



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cinderella AU, Fluff, Gladio has a thing for freckles, Ignoct if you squint, M/M, Masks, Masquerade Ball, No Smut, Prompto is Cinderella, because seriously, because why not, bit of angst, especially Prompto's freckles, featuring Ardyn Izunia as step-mother, much fluff, prompto needs glasses, rated teen for the odd swear word, who doesn't have a thing for freckles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-11 19:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10472367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raufnir/pseuds/Raufnir
Summary: “Have courage, and be kind.” He puffed his freckled cheeks out, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. His palms were sweating, but he knew he had to do this for his father. He deserved a chance at being happy again.Prompto lives with his cruel stepmother and two awful stepsisters after the death of his father, and, embarrassed at his hard life, feels he has to keep the truth from his best friend, Prince Noctis. In two years of friendship he has avoided going to the palace altogether, and has only met Ignis. When Gentiana gives him a costume, he meets the prince’s shield at the masquerade ball, held in honour of Noct’s 18th, but before the masks come off at stroke of midnight… well, you know the fairy-tale. Here’s my FFXV version. Prompto is so sweet, always putting other people first, it seemed only natural that he’d be like Cinderella.The title is a mixture of the Lavender’s Blue nursery rhyme that runs through the soundtrack of the whole movie, combined with the colour of Prompto’s eyes, especially in earlier artwork when they look almost purple.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched the ‘new’ Disney Cinderella on Netflix (don't do it, it's terrible), and couldn’t help wondering what our FFXV boys would do in that universe. I've basically been shoving them into every AU I come across lately. Little blondie Prompto would have to be Cinderella (weight-loss through extreme hardship in this AU). I had to make the step-mum the lady Izunia… Initially I wanted to do a Promptis, but Promptio kind of happened instead because I'm weak and I like these two together.
> 
> If you want to see how I imagined Prompto, [ here's a link to my Tumblr post...](http://expectogladiolus.tumblr.com/post/159312386374/my-ao3-cinderella-au-story-is-now-complete)
> 
> Comments and kudos gratefully received, but as always, I'm just happy you dropped by! You can find me on Tumblr at @expectogladiolus too :D

“Have courage, and be kind.” That had been his mother’s favourite saying, something she’d whispered into his soft blond hair when she’d stroked it gently to ease him into sleep as a child. Now, a little older, and almost used to facing a world without her, he puffed his freckled cheeks out, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. His palms were sweating, but he knew he had to do this for his father. He deserved a chance at being happy again.

Tyres crunched on the gravel outside their small but traditional Lucian mansion on the edge of the enormous city of Insomnia, and in no time, two girls dressed in bright, gaudy coloured dresses were stepping out as his father rushed over to meet them.

Prompto hung back a pace, fighting nausea and anxiety back down his throat. Short, freckly, and rather fat, the young Prompto Argentum was no one’s idea of a good-looking child, but, beloved by his father, it had never bothered him much. He didn’t feel like he needed friends at junior school because he had his father outside of class. And now, apparently, he was to gain two stepsisters and a stepmother.

Swallowing his fears down with all the ease of a blocked drain, he shuffled out into the sunshine.

“He’s fat as a beach ball!” hissed the first girl to get out and look him up and down.

“And that stringy hair,” countered the other as she stepped out of the car and joined her.

“Have courage, and be kind,” Prompto chanted under his breath before extending a pudgy hand in greeting, only to be sneered at. 

The two girls were twins, and maybe a year older than Prompto was. And they were horrible.

“Have courage, and be kind. Have courage, and be kind.” He repeated as the red haired woman his father had married emerged theatrically from the car, swathed in a billowing black and white coat despite the heat, and swept into the house without so much as a sideways glance at him.

His father turned to him once the others had gone inside, and Prompto somehow dredged up the courage to smile at him, though the gesture shattered and fell away the moment his back was turned. Breathing hard, he stumbled inside and began a new chapter in his life.

_Have courage._

That was a trait which required a lot of effort for the nervous, stuttering child after the death of his father, less than a year later, but being kind came more easily to him, even to his awful new family. Warm and gentle as a ray of sunshine, Prompto worked hard to keep his parents’ beloved house in order. He cherished that house and all its sacred memories. It was all he had left of them besides his memories and his precious camera.

Never in his life had he felt more isolated than in the years after his father’s death, but at least he was not _entirely_ alone. His tiny attic room became a small and secret sanctuary for stray cats and injured puppies from all over the city, and he shared what meagre scraps he gleaned from the kitchen with the twittering birds that liked to flit from the tree in the garden to his windowsill.

He’d managed to hide his camera from his terrible stepmother's beady eyes, and it provided him with a little window on their world, and he would sit there on afternoons when his so-called family were all out and the chores were done for the moment, and try to get the most exciting angle or catch the way the light flashed on their tiny feathers.

One evening, wearing his old glasses, too small for his face and with one cracked lens, the thirteen year old caught a movement on his windowsill and saw two mice scampering along the woodwork outside the glass. One was enormously fat and the other a skinny little specimen. The way they played together made Prompto’s heart flutter with joy, but by the time he'd grabbed his trusty camera, the little creatures had gone.

At the age of sixteen he had become so skinny that he was sure that if he turned sideways he’d become invisible, but at least he had a friend. The prince, for some reason, had taken a shine to him in the very first week of high school, and they had somehow become the unlikeliest of best friends.  Prompto was ever grateful that he had decided to keep the connection a secret from his power-hungry step-family, and he never spoke of his family to Noctis. Noctis never asked anyway.

Early one evening after school, Prompto was flaked out on Noctis’ sofa, dozing on the edge of an exhausted sleep while waiting to give the prince some handouts from class that day. Noctis had had to miss school for reasons which were above Prompto’s clearance level, and as he felt his eyelids flutter down over his blurry blue eyes, he became dimly aware of Ignis’ long frame pacing across the living room of the apartment. The most delicious smell wafted up around him, and there was the soft clunk of a plate being set down on the coffee table beside him. Two small pops sounded as Ignis’ knees cracked, and as a hand touched his shoulder, Prompto realised that the prince’s advisor was kneeling beside him.

“Prompto,” he murmured. “You look worn out. When was the last time you had a square meal?”

Although only two years older than Noctis and Prompto, at nineteen, Ignis always seemed so dignified and grown up. Now, his almost maternal kindness made Prompto blush. “I… I…” he stammered, floundering as he tired to sit up. “I’m fine – it’s just been a tough day with school and everything…”

Ignis did not look convinced in the slightest, but he smiled, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and sighed. “Well, I made you peppery daggerquill rice,” he smiled. “Thought you’d like it.”

“Ignis!” he gasped, blushing furiously. “That… I…” Tears pricked at his eyes and he blinked. “Th-Thank you…” The unexpected gesture went straight to his heart.

The advisor rumbled a chuckle, patted his shoulder once, and stood with a soft grunt of effort while Prompto reached for the bowl. “I’m expecting Noctis home any moment. Gladio is dropping him off shortly.”

“Gladio?” he asked through an immense mouthful of fiery rice.

Ignis frowned, and Prompto wasn’t sure whether the gesture was for his manners or for not knowing who this ‘Gladio’ was. The advisor went back to the kitchen and covered the remaining portion of food, saying, “Gladiolus is Noctis’ shield. I'd have thought you’d have met him by now?” He slid the dish into the oven to keep warm and emerged once more, leaning his long body on the doorframe.

Prompto swallowed the delicious food and shook his head. “No, I’ve not met anyone other than you and Noctis… I've managed to avoid going to the palace altogether, so... yeah...” He laughed, swallowed nervously and added, “I think I’ve heard of him though…”

"Well, he's not easy to miss or forget, so I'll assume that pleasure is yet ahead of you."

The matter seemed closed, and as the lock rattled, the advisor’s green eyes flitted to the front door. Noctis stumped in alone a moment later, shoulders slumped, face even paler that usual, and a sullen frown across his brows. Kicking his shoes off, he sighed expansively and made a beeline for Prompto’s sofa and flopped down on it beside his best friend.

“Long day, highness?” Ignis asked, coming over and pressing a glass of cool elderflower into his hand.

Noctis nodded, took the drink, and gulped it down in five long glugs. “Thanks, Iggy,” he gasped. “Needed that. Yeah, long day. Lots of really dull meetings. You got off easy when you left after lunch.”

Ignis smiled and took the empty glass off him. “I had some other reports to compile for your father,” he said. “But I’m sure you had it much worse.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Noctis glowered.

Ignis, his smile as much an enigma as the man, fetched the other bowl of rice and brought it over to him. “Here,” he said gently. “Hopefully this should revive you somewhat.”

Halfway through, and long after Prompto had finished inhaling his food, Ignis brought up a subject that Prompto knew all too well was a sore one for the prince. “I was also conducting research on new and unusual recipes for the food at your forthcoming masquerade ball,” he said as he stacked the dishwasher. Noctis growled something indistinct from behind a forkful of rice, and Ignis frowned. “Still not keen, I see, highness?”

“Why should I be?” he grumbled, gesturing with his fork and sending a small shower of rice over his lap and over Prompto in the process. “A whole evening of people sucking up to me, and trying to get my father to change his mind about marrying me off to Luna, in the hopes I'll marry their daughter instead.”

“It _is_ your eighteenth birthday,” Ignis pressed. “It should be cause for celebration…”

“Is Luna coming?” Prompto asked, hoping to lighten his friend’s mood.

He shook his head, scraping together the last few grains of rice. “She’s busy in Tenebrae,” he said, his voice flat and strangely emotionless.

Ignis leaned against the counter and seemed to go a little sad around the corners of his eyes. “At least you’ll have us there, highness.”

“Not me,” Prompto sighed.

Ignis’ expression sharpened into a frown and he practically barked, “Why on earth not? I assumed that, as Noct’s best friend, you would be going.”

“Alas,” Prompto grinned, raising the back of his hand to his forehead in an overly dramatic gesture, “I am but a lowly commoner, and there is no room for a pleb like me at such a royal occasion…”

“That’s absurd,” Ignis snapped. “Noct, surely you of all people can get a him an invitation?”

Noctis blushed a deep crimson and didn’t look up.

“Noct?” Ignis demanded.

“It’s fine,” Prompto blurted, feeling uncomfortable on Noctis’ behalf. “Not my kind of thing anyway… I’m sure I’d only fall over my feet, take out a priceless vase or something, and embarrass everyone in a five mile radius…”

He felt the prince’s dark sapphire eyes on him and he looked up and met his gaze. “Prom,” his friend said, “If you want to go, I can get you in no problem. I’m sorry, it didn’t even occur to me that you wouldn’t get an invite…”

His heart began to hammer at the thought of it, making his blood pound in his reddening ears. “M-Maybe? I mean… Are you sure?”

“Of course I want you there! I just… I’m sorry Prom. I didn’t think.” He narrowed those dark blue eyes and added, “And it’ll mean I _finally_ get you to come to the palace after, like, two years of trying!”

As it turned out, a while later, a flurry of invitations went out around Insomnia and set all the ladies of the entire city twittering. Regis had decided that, with increasing tensions in Niflheim, it was not only the highest nobility who should attend, but the upper echelons of the merchant and middle classes too. Prompto’s stepmother was amongst those to receive invitations.

With trembling fingers, he delivered what he recognised as a royal invitation to his stepmother at breakfast. Having seen Noctis signing what seemed like a thousand of the things in his apartment a week earlier, he knew exactly what it was, but when she opened it and clutched it to her ample bosom, gasping in delight, he sighed. He had at least hoped to have an evening of fun that wasn’t darkened by the presence of his abusive so-called family.

“What is it mama?” Anastasia demanded.

“A _royal_ invitation,” the lady Izunia purred. “Careful!” she snapped as both sisters reached for it at the same time. “You’ll tear it, and I want to have it framed!”

The fluttering and twittering that ensued threatened to drive Prompto mad, so much so that he was actually grateful to be sent to the couture shop in the best part of Insomnia to order three dresses for them. Where he money was coming from, he wasn't sure, and didn't want to know.

The lady who ran the boutique knew him from previous trips made at his stepmother’s behest, and she was surprisingly kind to the scrawny kid. Once the dresses were ordered, she turned to him and looked expectantly.

“What?” he blushed, taking half a step backwards.

“Nothing for you?”

“I…” his blush went from cherry blossom to cherry red in a heartbeat. “I’m still working on that…” he said, knowing full well he could never get his stepmother to finance an outfit for him. “Madam said she won't stretch to an outfit for me as well, so…”

The memory of lady Izunia's indelicate snort when he had carelessly expressed excitement at going flashed painfully across his mind. “But the invitation says to _all_ the principle members of the household,” he’d blurted.

“Dear, stupid little Prompto,” she had sneered. “You are _not_ a principle member of this household any longer. You lost that right when your fool of a father expired and left us almost nothing but a nearly empty bank account, and a useless scrap of a child to fulfil all the duties of the staff which we can no longer afford to support!” She had almost spilled her tea from its delicate china cup as she’d scoffed, “You will _not_ be going to the ball!” Her laughter had echoed off the walls as he'd fled back to the kitchens to finish washing up their breakfast things.

The owner of the dress shop sighed and laid a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the moment. “That is a shame,” she said. “But you know, my son is about your size. I actually have something here in the shop which he no longer wears. Let me get it for you.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t afford it!” Prompto rushed to say before she left the room.

“My gift,” she called as she rummaged around in a back room. “I have a soft spot for you, kiddo, and besides, you’ll be doing me a favour if you take it. I can’t sell it as we don’t offer second hand items, but it’s too good to throw away. I’ve got some dress shoes you can borrow as well, though I’ll need those back when it’s over.”

The suit she held up was a gorgeous cream and gold outfit that looked like it’d fit Prompto like a glove. He blushed and stuttered and tried to refuse, but she was having none of it. “O-Ok,” he finally said, “Th-Thank you. But look, I c-can’t take it today, but can I come and get it tomorrow afternoon?”

His stepmother was out the next day having her deep red hair re-coloured, and he knew his stepsisters had a dance class after school, so he was able to smuggle it up to the attic without them seeing. As it hung in the dusty loft, some semblance of happiness and excitement kindled in his chest. Finally he’d be dressed for the palace. He'd be worthy of being Noctis’ friend. He needn't be embarrassed this time. 

When he came downstairs on the evening of the ball, he was ready to defend himself to his stepmother, but he was not prepared for the abject cruelty with which she and his stepsisters rounded on him, circling like sabretooths. The two girls began first to pick and then to tear at his clothes, ripping pockets off and finally shoving him to the ground, cackling. He scrambled to his feet, trying desperately to scrape the shreds of his shattered courage together again.

Snatching up a pair of her sewing scissors in a fit of rage from the needlework basket by the fireplace, his stepmother brandished them in his face and then drew the front of the smart jacket away from his skinny body and gouged down the outside of the jacket with the point of the little scissors, leaving a great gash in the material. The larger tear was the damage to Prompto’s little heart as it broke. “No!” he shrieked, reeling backwards and tripping over Anastasia’s heeled shoe which she’d stuck out deliberately. “No, please!”

“I will not have my daughters associated with you!” The lady Izunia mocked, glaring down at him as he sat, winded and bruised on the floor. “By the Six, I don’t care if the king himself gave you that little joke of an outfit, you’re not going!”

Worn down by years of being insulted, degraded, and trodden on by the three of them, Prompto found the last dregs of his courage flickering. And then, when she chucked her half full glass of red wine over the white shirt and cream jacket, staining it red as blood, and his heart plunged down in little pieces to his borrowed shoes, and he began to cry.

The three flounced from the house, leaving Prompto at the front door with their laughter ringing in his ears. He stumbled over the threshold and out into the balmy Lucian evening as their car sped away, and he staggered over the cobblestones of the front drive. Prompto slumped over the hard stone rim of a decorative fountain in the front garden in a heap of broken hopes and falling tears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In our Final Fantasy fairytale, Prompto gets his masquerade outfit and arrives at the ball. Gladio is being a grumpy behemoth-pants as usual until...  
> Also, I tried to give Gentiana that strange speech pattern/quality she has in the game, so if she sounds overly formal or just a bit odd, then it’s because she kind of is… If you want to see how I imagined Prompto, [ here's a link to my Tumblr post...](http://expectogladiolus.tumblr.com/post/159312386374/my-ao3-cinderella-au-story-is-now-complete)

“It isn’t fair,” he sobbed to himself, looking down at his tattered jacket and ruined shirt. He could smell the wine, thick and cloying in his nostrils, and found that it had spattered and dripped onto his trousers too. “It just isn’t fair.” No matter how hard he had tried to be kind, to be brave, it all ended up going to shit anyway. “I’m sorry, mother, father,” he wept. “I said I’d have courage, but I don’t. Not anymore. I don’t believe anymore.”

He drew out his phone and, with shaking fingers, texted Noct. _Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling well. I can’t come to the ball tonight. I hope you guys have an amazing time._ He knew he wouldn’t get a reply, as Noctis would be up to his eyeballs in preparations and protocol, and he set his phone back down and bent over the masonry of the fountain and began to weep again. His back shuddered in great sobs, and he wasn’t sure how long he knelt, slumped on the edge of the fountain.

A tingle in the air, a slight cooling, a subtle shift in the temperature, made him look up. His big blue eyes were bleary and his face was stained pink with tears, but he could just make out a figure standing a little way off. He sniffed and tried to pull himself together.

There, standing at the gates to the modest mansion set back from the street, was a ragged woman with lank, black hair. Eyes half closed, she looked exhausted. “Excuse me, can you help me?” she croaked, holding out her hand. “Just a little crust of bread, or a cup of milk?” Her voice was lyrical and she had an accent he couldn't place.

He swallowed, coming to his senses in a rush of shame and pity. Who was he to be upset that he couldn’t go to a stupid royal ball because his outfit was ruined, when someone like her had nothing at all? “Yes,” he said, standing and making his way back towards the house. “Yes, yes, of course. I think I can find something for you.”

He gestured at her to follow him inside, and when she was seated by the glowing embers of the fire he’d let die in the kitchen grate, she asked him in her softly-accented voice why he was crying.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he sniffed, buttering a slice of soft, white bread, deliberately chosen because it was his stepmother’s favourite, and pouring a glass of milk for her. He noticed how she kept her eyelids half closed, as though the effort of opening them was simply too great.

“Nothing?” she asked, her voice getting a little stronger as she took the glass from him. “What is a glass of milk? Nothing,” she said. As he walked away, she added, “But _kindness_ … makes it everything.”

She drank it demurely and Prompto frowned at her words. She sounded so much like his mother for a moment that he was unable to move. He shivered. Her hands had been so cold when their skin had touched. “Let me build up the fire a little for you,” he said, busying himself with firewood, forgetting entirely that he was still wearing a ripped and dripping wet ball outfit.

“I don’t mean to hurry you,” she said, looking at him more intently. “But you haven’t got long, Prompto.”

He froze, hand extended towards the fire. “What? What do you mean? How do you know me?”

She smiled. Her eyes were a deep, glittering, olive green and they bored into him as he knelt beside her. “I’ve known you a while, Prompto,” she said softly. “I’d have thought you’d have worked out who I am by now.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, a little frightened.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said with a low laugh. “My name is Gentiana. I’m your fairy godmother. And I say you _shall_ go to the ball.”

“You can’t be,” he faltered. “Fairy godmothers are just made up for children…”

She scolded him gently. “Didn’t your own mother believe in them?” When Prompto began to splutter a response, she held up her finger and commanded silence from him with the gesture, adding, “Don’t say no, because I heard her.”

And then the strange lady with the lilting voice stood up and her rags fell away to reveal a close-fitting and beautiful, glittering, silver-blue dress, studded with what Prompto could only assume were diamonds. Her skin was pale and perfect and her hair now shone like moonlight. He breathed out a soft exclamation, unable to form proper words at the sight of her.

With a smile, she looked around the kitchen and, much to Prompto’s confusion, began to pick up and set down vegetables from the sideboard without a word. When her eyes lighted on the huge pumpkin that Prompto had bought for half price from the market and had been thinking about turning into soup, she exhaled softly in triumph and told him to bring it out to the side of the house.

He followed her through the small back garden, his skinny arms straining under the weight of the enormous vegetable.

“Set it down there,” she said when she was standing on the secluded driveway beside the house.

He did as instructed, feeling extremely foolish, and wondering whether he had either lost his mind or whether someone had sent him a practical joke. He almost looked around for the cameras. But when the mysterious woman knelt low to the pumpkin and placed her lips on it in a kiss, he knew he had simply gone mad. Who kisses vegetables?

And then he blinked in astonishment.

The summer air instantly went chill as midwinter and the surface of the pumpkin began to glisten with frost. It slowly traced patterns over the curves and ridges of the orange skin until the whole pumpkin was a shimmering, glass-like, silver-blue colour with the icy fronds of frost swirling around it. Gentiana stepped further away from the pumpkin and turned to look at Prompto, who just stood there with his mouth hanging open like a landed catfish.

“Please,” she said in a low whisper, “Stand back a little.”

The pumpkin shuddered and then began to expand, change shape, and in a rush of glittering snow and ice, the pumpkin disappeared, and in its place sat a gleaming silver car that would have given the king’s classic Regalia a run for its money. “Oh. Em. Gee.”

With a half smile, Gentiana turned away from him and said, “Now, you’ll need someone to drive you.”

“I can drive, you know,” he blurted. He’d had to learn at sixteen when lady Izunia had fired her chauffeur. Well, the man disappeared and was never seen again at any rate.

She giggled softly and said, “I know you can. But the people attending the ball will not be driving themselves there. And this is _your_ night, Prompto. Tonight, it’s your turn…”

He grinned and decided just to let her get on with it. To his right he glimpsed a flash of movement. It was the pale cat which had recently been frequenting his room for scraps. He was watching the two of them from the edge of the drive like nothing more was going on than a simple conversation between two people. Gentiana’s green eyes followed his violet blue ones, and they widened in delight when she saw what he was staring at. She stooped down gracefully and scooped the cream kitty up in her arms. “Yes,” she cooed. “Yes, you’ll do perfectly.”

She kissed the cat on the top of the head and set it back down beside the car. Within moments, and after another flurry of snow, a white-haired man in cream livery was standing before him. He blinked in surprise, and then bowed his head, but said nothing.

Prompto flushed, stuttered something, and looked at Gentiana in amazement, who only smiled fondly at him. “Now,” she said. “You have everything which you need.”

“But… I can’t go like this…” he mumbled, looking dolefully down at his ruined clothes and blushing a deep scarlet again.

“No,” she agreed with a delighted smile. “No, you cannot.”

She stepped closer to him, so close he could smell the ozone and scent of cold winter evenings that seemed to swirl around her like the snow, and she raised her frozen fingers to his face. For a wild moment he thought she was going to kiss him on the lips, but she bowed his head and graced his forehead with the daintiest kiss he’d ever been given.

Cold shot down his spine and he shivered. His vision went white, obscured by the flurry of snow flakes which filled his eyes. When he opened them, he looked down and saw that the stained and ruined gold jacket he had been wearing had been replaced by a frosty rush of silver-blue and ivory brocade, accented with crystal buttons which glittered like ice. His breath went from his chest in a rush and he looked up at her. “Gentiana,” he hissed. “This is… I can’t…”

Unable to hold her gaze, his blue eyes went to the floor and he noticed that his borrowed shoes had also been transformed. His ivory trousers, which fitted him closely but not so tightly that his self-consciousness spiked, fell without a crease down to the pair of smart shoes which were adorned with an ornate, cut-glass buckle, purely decorative and utterly exquisite. They were beautiful.

The corners of those green eyes crinkled as she watched his astonishment, and she said, “There is still one more thing.” His face snapped up to look at her and became a question. She giggled and reached for the petals of a white camellia that was blooming beside the stone archway into the garden. Plucking two petals from it, she laid them in her hand like two tear drops, and breathed on them.

Before his eyes, the petals fused together at the widest end and grew into a burnished silver carnival mask, edged with delicate filigree, which she placed over his face with tenderness. As she did, she said, “ _Argentum_. Silver, like you.” He had kept his parents' name in their honour, but to hear it on her lips like that drew huge, rolling, silent tears from his violet blue eyes.

Gentiana lifted the mask again and brushed them away with her thumb. “Now, now,” she said her voice firm but infinitely kind. “Have courage. And listen well. This magic is borrowed magic, and will only hold until the last stroke of midnight, at which time it must be returned. On the last stroke of midnight, everything will go back to the way it was before. Do you understand?”

He nodded and sniffed. “Thank you, Gentiana. I don't deserve this.”

A thought thrummed through him as he realised his stepmother and stepsisters would be there, but when he expressed his fears, she simply said, “Do not worry. No one you know will recognise you tonight with this mask on – it is part of the magic. Just have fun, Prompto. I would not do this for just anyone.” He nodded a final time and she held the car door open for him. “Remember, midnight…”

The journey to the palace through the streets of Insomnia didn’t take particularly long as the streets were clear. As they neared the beautiful citadel complex, Prompto saw fireworks beginning to shoot up into the sky, their glittering sparks reflecting in the iridescent shield of Insomnia’s great wall above. The party must have been in full swing already.

As he stepped shakily out into the nearly empty courtyard in front of the palace, the driver who had, until that evening, been just a cat, leaned across and said softly, “Be back here just before midnight. Have fun.” He saw how Prompto was shaking, and added, “Prompto, have courage. You’ve been kind – I should know – but now it’s your turn.”

Obsessively making sure the mask was firmly in place over the top half of his freckled face, he began his journey up the palace stairs. He was grateful that he spent most of his free time scuttling up and down the stairs of the mansion, otherwise he would probably have grown sweaty and ruined all of Gentiana’s efforts. “At least I’m not that little fat kid any more,” he chuckled to himself. He wished he had glasses to clear his blurry vision, but his old ones didn’t fit his face any more, and besides, they were cracked. Even that couldn’t put a dent in his happiness though.

Once he’d got past the security desk and handed his invitation over to them with trembling fingers, he found his way inside and tried not to gape openly. The palace interior was just as stunning as he’d expected it to be, even if it was all a little fuzzy, and he made his way down a line of statues, heading towards the rumbling noise of talking guests and clinking glasses. He rounded a corner and froze at the sight of three people standing at the end of the corridor with their backs to him, waiting to enter the ballroom. He recognised the dark hair sticking out from under that black mask, and he knew the silver-grey hair of the tall man standing him. Noctis and Ignis.

The person he did not recognise was the huge figure on Noct’s other side. Dressed in smart, black royal livery, the man was at least six foot four, and had his shoulder length hair half tied back off his face. The ribbon of his mask passed underneath the small upper section, and Prompto couldn’t see much else of his face from that angle. In the soft light of the corridor the man's hair glimmered with a thousand different shades of brown and gold, like autumn, and Prompto was mesmerised by the set of his neck and the broadness of his shoulders.

The three of them were standing in front of the doors to the ballroom, and as the doors were opened by unseen attendants on the other side, the lights of the hall beyond dimmed and Noctis inhaled.

“You got this, Noct,” the huge man grinned, slapping the crown prince on the shoulder, making him stagger slightly towards the doors to the palace ballroom.

Noctis made an indistinct grunt and Ignis darted forward, shooting the tall one an acid green glare as he straightened Noctis’ cream and gold jacket. It was a glare which even Prompto caught behind the elegant, iron-grey carnival mask the advisor was wearing. “Please try to restrain yourself tonight, Gladio,” Ignis fired sarcastically. “And do try not to scare _everyone_ off.”

Oh.

So _that_ was Gladio.

“I’m his shield," he said flippantly. "It’s my job to scare people off him.”

Noct, ignoring the eyes on him from the ballroom beyond, half turned back over his shoulder to speak to the one Prompto now knew was Gladio, and Prompto was filled with terror that he’d be spotted. Noct, however, didn’t see him as he shot behind a suit of armour, and the prince said said, “Look, Gladio, half the people in that room are undercover Glaives, and I’ll have Ignis by my side the whole night. Why don’t you relax for once. Assuming you still know how to have fun…”

Prompto, from his hiding place, caught the reddening of Gladio’s ears behind his black mask, but there was little in the big man’s gruff voice that gave him away. “Yeah, highness,” he drawled. “I do know how. Alright,” and he turned to the prince’s advisor with a half bow, “Iggy, I leave him in your care.”

Ignis nodded once and poked the prince hard in the small of his back. “Come on. Your father is expecting you, and punctuality is the politeness of princes.”

“Actually,” Noct countered, “It’s ‘the politeness of _kings_ ’ in the original quote…”

“Get in there and stop whining, you brat,” Gladio smirked, ushering the other two in before him with a rather grandiose, mocking gesture.

Prompto felt sorry for the prince as he squared his shoulders and drew his head up. Noctis knew the part that was expected of him to play, but the little blond could see the prince's heart just wasn’t in it. He did it for Regis, for his father, and despite his reluctance, he played his part beautifully.

Prompto waited in that corridor for a long time for the music to start up again and the dancing to begin. Using the commotion and excitement after the Prince's first dance as a cover, he snuck in through the doors and made his way down the staircase as gracefully as he could manage. He was sorry to have missed the chance to see Noctis dancing, and to rib him for it at school on Monday, but he had been so nervous he was sure he’d have fallen down the stairs or something and caused  huge scene while the prince was trying to be, well, all princely. No one noticed him enter, no one cared about just one more guest, even one dressed in such quietly elegant clothes, and everyone continued to whirl around the glittering ballroom, dancing, laughing, drinking.

Everyone, that is, except the huge figure standing beside the royal ballroom’s great doors leading out onto the terrace which overlooked the gardens beyond. No guests came within five yards of him, probably because the behemoth of a man was glowering like Ramuh with a head cold.

Prompto hung back on the upper gallery, nervously peering into the room. Instantly he picked out his stepmother in her black and white dress, with her dark red hair, flanked by her daughters, and he watched them for a moment. He rolled his eyes as he watched the lady Izunia corner some poor squeaking nobleman and practically force the man to dance with Anastasia, who trod about as delicately as a Zu on the ground as they began their ‘dance’. Drizella got partnered with a man who was tall and skinny as a reed, and looked about as excited to be dancing with her as Noctis was about eating vegetables. Prompto allowed himself the tiniest of little giggles.

The man standing alone by the doors sighed. He finished the rest of his champagne in a single gulp and looked around the dancefloor. He couldn't help it. He was still on duty. He was always on duty. He found himself analysing all the guests who passed him. _No threat. Potential threat. Has done martial arts. Couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Glaive. Morbidly obese. Glaive. No threat._ “Hey,” a deep and quiet voice growled in his ear.

“Marshal,” he said, standing a little straighter for a moment before leaning his weight back against the cool marble. The room was hot, and he was overdressed.

Cor offered him a rare smile and said, “You look like you’re having about as much fun as I am.”

“At least you haven’t been fired for the evening,” Gladio scowled.

“Fired?”

“Yeah, Noct ordered me to ‘have some fun’.” Cor narrowed his steely blue eyes. “Ugh,” Gladio exhaled. “Why does everyone assume I don’t know how to have fun?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Well then,” the Marshal laughed. “Go and pick a pretty face out from the crowd and spend the evening with it. We’ve got security handled.” He clapped Gladio once on his massive shoulder and slunk through the crowd like a shadow, disappearing amidst the faces.

Five minutes later, Gladio was still standing alone, his now empty champagne flute held with surprising delicacy in his enormous hand, leaning against his massive gilt marble column when he caught sight of a flash of pale blue and ivory on the staircase. He saw the skinny young nobleman make his way down the stairs and, with his amber eyes, took in the nervous set of his shoulders, the softly spiked golden hair, and that elegant, burnished silver mask which covered most of his face except for a pair of pale, soft lips and a delicate chin.

It wasn’t until he caught the way the boy sucked in a deep breath, held it, puffed it out, and then impulsively swiped a flute off a passing champagne tray that he realised _quite_ how frightened he was. Gladio’s first thought at seeing someone so nervous was that he was up to no good, but then as he drew a little bit closer and looked around him, he saw the boy’s eyes, and his heart stopped beating.

Glittering, huge and endless behind the silver filigree of his mask, they were the most delicate and enchanting shade of lavender blue he had ever seen.

Slowly, almost lazily, he pushed his enormous frame off the column, ditched his glass on a nearby table, and began to thread his way through the crowd. The dancers became a blur around him. The only things in focus were that young man’s eyes. They were all that existed in that moment.

And then they found Gladio’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your comments on the first chapter! I hope this one lives up to expectations. Let me know in the comments, and the next chapter will probably be up either on Sunday or early next week... It's all written, just unedited at the moment...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto and Gladio finally meet and share their evening, but midnight draws ever nearer...
> 
> Wow. It's a long one. I originally broke it into two, but I realised I'd already left it on a cliffhanger last time, so I took pity on you and let Prompto and Gladio have a full evening together.
> 
> If you want to see how I imagined Prompto, [ here's a link to my Tumblr post...](http://expectogladiolus.tumblr.com/post/159312386374/my-ao3-cinderella-au-story-is-now-complete)

Prompto’s heart lurched when he saw the man, whom he now knew was the prince’s shield, snaking his way round the edge of the ballroom towards him, amber eyes locked on him like a homing device. He seemed to be stalking the younger boy like a king coeurl stalking a mesmenir.

Prompto’s throat went dry and he looked for a way out. He had no idea why the shield was staring at him, and moving in on him, but he didn’t want to hang around to find out. Gentiana had said that no one would recognise him, but he did _not_ want to put it to the test and be hauled up in front of Noctis, or someone worse, for any reason. Especially after texting him to say he was ill. He didn’t fancy trying to explain all the madness of pumpkins turning into cars and cats turning in chauffeurs in front of Ignis and the prince. Not at all.

The doors to the ballroom stood open, letting the soft August air wash in from the terrace, and he used his skinny body to his advantage and began to weave through the couples on the other side of the room from Gladio. It was hard not to tread on toes, or trip on dresses, but he managed it alright. He did it slowly and carefully, like he was just in need of a breath of air, not like he had four tons of behemoth after him. What he planned to do when he was outside he wasn't sure, but at least whatever transpired wouldn't be quite so public.

“Hey!” a shout rang out and Prompto froze like a rabbit.

He wouldn’t? Gladio wouldn’t cause a scene here, surely? Very slowly, he looked over his shoulder and exhaled in blissful relief as he saw a duke, or a count, or something, in white tie slapping another man with a feathered mask on the back and guffawing, “Haha, old boy, I knew that was you, what, what! Can’t hide from me under those black chocobo feathers!”

He shivered as adrenaline swamped his mind for a moment, only to see that Gladio had stopped and was watching him from where he’d come to a halt. Prompto frowned. Perhaps Gladio hadn’t been after him at all. The expression, or what he could see of it from under the simple black mask which covered almost the entirety of the right side of the shield’s face, was one of defeat. Prompto noticed an angry-looking scar that slashed down the left cheek, but it was those honey coloured eyes, rimmed with darker gold, that stopped him. The huge man looked suddenly immensely sad.

Conjuring a little puff of courage inside him, he forced his lips to twitch into a nervous smile, which he directed at the shield, and then he fairly bolted for the doors out onto the terrace.

The gardens were breathtakingly beautiful. Someone had taken the time to lace all the box hedges, bushes, and trees with twinkling lights so that the whole palace looked like it was home to a million fairies and fireflies. He gasped when he saw it and clasped his hand to his mouth. “Gods,” he breathed. “Wow.” His wide blue eyes were blurry, but still, it was stunning.

“Really something, huh?” rasped a deep voice from behind him about a minute later.

Prompto yipped in surprise and turned around so quickly the world took a while to catch up. There, standing – no, towering – over him, was the prince’s shield. His throat went dry all over again, words evaporating too. Eventually he managed to kick-start his vocal cords back into action and blurted, “Must have taken them ages to set up. All those little lights. Gods, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to put those away. I mean, I thought the Christmas tree lights are bad enough. There must be _miles_ of those ones …”

To his surprise, the huge man gave a throaty, whickering laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, staring at Prompto with an odd expression. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Dunno,” he said, honesty ringing in his deep baritone. “But not that.”

Prompto stared at the smart black blazer he wore, and then at the half mask. “So you’re Gladio, huh?” he mused aloud. The blush that stung his face was hot enough to melt his silver mask and cast an impression of his own face in it.

Unfazed, Gladio gave a half bow of his head and smiled. “That’s me.”

“Aren’t you, like, Noct's… um, Noctis’… I mean, like, _Prince_ Noctis’ shield?” Oh gods.

This was going to shit faster than a malboro fart to the face.

The shield’s handsome expression creased into a frown, but he nodded. “Yup.” He looked like he was trying to find something to ask Prompto in return, but Prompto turned his back on him in sheer panic and began to stare out at the twinkling lights of the gardens.

He heard Gladio sigh. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, sounding almost nervous.

Prompto turned back over his shoulder and tried his best to look at Gladio, but the mask, comfortable as it was, didn’t allow for much of a view when he was looking sideways out of the eye holes. Whatever he himself looked like, he was surprised to note that, not for the first time that evening, Gladio’s cheeks were flushed a pretty pink. He even seemed to be biting his lower lip subconsciously. Finally Prompto jerked back to the moment and nodded. “Y-Yeah, yes please… thanks.”

Finally Gladio cracked a smile and bowed. “Wait here then.”

Prompto watched him head back through the crowd of guests, and saw a couple of countesses twittering and fawning as the shield passed, and one young lady even waylaid him with an arm through his and a request to dance. Still just within earshot, Prompto felt his heart sink a little as Gladio’s head lowered politely and he opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t stand a chance against that.

“Thank you, my lady, you honour me,” the shield said politely, his deep baritone carrying perfectly to Prompto’s ears. “But I’m not dancing right at the moment.”

Prompto stared harder at the woman he had just shut down. She was _gorgeous._

And the shield had shut her down because he was going to get some scrawny kid in a silver mask a drink? No way the prince’s shield could be gay. That kind of luck just wasn't for Prompto. Prompto swallowed nervously and turned back to the garden, heartbeat and thoughts racing each other neck and neck.

He’d known right from an early age that he was as drawn to boys as he was to girls, and it had come as a surprise to him to learn that most people were drawn to one or the other, and not both. He had entertained a crush on Noctis for a while, but it had passed when he’d accidentally discovered that the prince and his advisor were secretly together. And the moment his big blue eyes had been opened to the fact, he’d sighed, almost in relief, and relinquished his boyish crush on Noctis. That didn’t mean he didn’t find the prince absolutely one of the most beautiful and fascinating creatures ever to stalk this earth, but it was now more the platonic kind of awe which came from being chronically clumsy and awkward. Like, all the time. He tried to make it work in his favour, laughing it off and generally being as adorable as a young chocobo learning to walk, but sometimes he envied Noctis his effortless grace and eternal expression of ennui. Nothing ever seemed to bother that kid or ruffle his feathers.

The clack of hard heels behind him made him jump.

“You stayed.” Gladio seemed almost surprised.

“Of c-course I did!” he stuttered. “Were you expecting me to, like, bolt or something?”

He shrugged. “You looked kind of flighty…”

He laughed nervously, stopped, and then laughed again. “Yeah, well, first time to the palace, and this isn’t really my natural habitat, let’s just say.”

“Oh?”

Shit. _Shitshitshitshit_. “Um, yeah. I try and steer clear of parties like this. You know, I’ve got foot-in-mouth disease. Got it real bad.”

“Sounds awful,” Gladio snorted playfully as he handed him his drink. "Is it contagious?"

“No, I don’t think so,” he shrugged lightly. “At least, no one else seems to suffer but me…”

“Good to know,” he smirked, his honey coloured eyes lingering oddly on Prompto’s lips for a moment as the younger boy passed his tongue over them. “So, you got a name lurking under that mask?” Gladio asked casually. Except his ‘casual’ came off just shy of ‘full interrogation’.

Prompto started to stutter again, and then remembered he was _supposed_ to be having fun, and that he didn’t _have_ to answer to _anyone_ tonight. Tonight was _his_ night. “It’s a masquerade ball,” he said somewhat coyly, his voice a little squeaky, but he felt he was just about holding his own. For now.

Gladio gestured bullishly with his head as if to say, ‘ _yeah, so what?_ ’

Prompto felt his eyes roll before he could stop. “So I don’t have to tell you my name. I gave my name to security on the way in, and they’re the only ones who need to know.” That was a lie. The name on the invitation that Gentiana had given him was 'Magnus Incognito'. Unknown nobleman. With the proliferation of Latinate surnames amongst the Insomnian gentry, the guards had been too busy or too uneducated to know what it really meant.

Gladio’s eyes narrowed. He looked like he was going to march Prompto all the way back to the main gate and demand they tell him who he was, but then, unexpectedly, his face cracked into a wide grin. “Fair enough. But you know my name, so I think you should give me at least _one_ thing about you in return, Argent.”

“Argent?” His heart thudded. He couldn’t know his surname, could he?

That questioning frown was back on his face again. “Yeah, I mean, I gotta call you something, and it was either that or Big Blue Eyes, and that just seemed to take too long to keep saying. Your mask is silver… the heraldic term for silver is Argent, so I went for that.”

“Oh.” Of course, as a crown soldier, Gladio would know all about heraldry and stuff. Prompto didn’t. He was rattled by the way that the heraldic pronunciation of the word was _exactly_ like the first half of his _actual_ surname.

“You don’t like it, you give me another one.”

“No,” he smiled. “No, Argent will do nicely. It’s…”

Gladio cocked his head curiously.

“If the shoe fits, so to speak,” Prompto mumbled. “Ok, so what did you want to know in return?”

“I only get one question?”

“What, are we, like, fourteen, playing twenty questions?”

His laugh was raw and deep, and Prompto loved it. He wanted to make him to laugh all evening like that. “ _You’re_ the mystery man,” Gladio said. “I’m not hiding anything. _You_ can ask _me_ anything you like.”

“Anything?”

Gladio nodded. “As long as it’s not a crown secret, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.”

“Ok, I’ll… you know… think of something, I guess. Til then, what do you want to know about me? I’m nobody. Nothing of interest here really…”

Gladio looked as though he were about to contradict him, but he bit his lip. “You know what, I’m gonna save my question,” he finally said. “When you’ve finished your drink, you want to walk with me?”

“Walk with you?”

Gladio’s certainty seemed to flicker for a moment, and his posture went more rigid as he reverted to the safe familiarity of being a soldier, and the etiquette that accompanied it. But the words didn’t match his stance. At all. He was sweet and faltering as he said, “Don’t feel like you have to, or anything. I just… yeah. Anyway. Look, I’ll… I’ll leave you in peace.”

“Please don’t,” Prompto blurted as Gladio turned away. “I mean, it’s plenty peaceful with you here. I mean… you don’t have to go.” He paused, nibbled his lower lip, and then snickered, “Gods, I’m glad you can’t see how red my face is right now.”

Gladio chuckled back, that same low, whickering from earlier, and leaned down a little from his great height. “Actually, I can.”

He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and stood there, almost swaying with mortification. “Perfect,” he hissed. The floor was suddenly extremely fascinating. He stared at it like it held the meaning of life in the grains of the flagstones.

And then he leapt ten feet in the air in shock.

Gladio’s fingers were under his chin, tenderly lifting his face just a little. “You said it,” he grinned, and then backed off a pace, raised his champagne flute in a sort of toast, and drank the last of it down before Prompto could respond. “I’m going to set my glass back down inside,” he said, clearly giving Prompto a moment either to recover his senses or to run away. “You want me to take yours?”

“Y-Yeah,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”

The clock tower chimed a melodious nine bells, and Prompto gave a soft whine as Gladio left. He only had three hours.

When he returned, Gladio asked him if he’d like to see the gardens a little closer up. Prompto grinned, and stammered something unintelligible that might have been a ‘yes please’. He coughed, blushed, and then tried to restrain himself.

Gladio smiled indulgently.

“So you’ve worked at the palace for, like, forever, or what?” Prompto asked awkwardly as they moved slowly along the terrace.

“Yeah, pretty much grew up here,” Gladio said, rubbing the back of his head where the black ribbon of his mask was tied in a clumsy knot. Prompto suspected it had been done up so tightly he'd have to cut the mask off at midnight. He found the idea endearing and it made him smile. “Amicitias have always been shields to the royal family, so I’ve lived here at the palace as much as I have at my father’s house, and trained with Noct and the other Crownsguard.”

“It’s tough,” Prompto supplied, scuffing the soles of his fancy shoes along the stone patio as they headed along it towards the gardens, “I mean, not having a choice.”

Gladio’s amber eyes looked right through him, but he shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” he smiled. He was massive, Prompto realised as he looked up at him. Colossal. Like the titan himself. He looked so beautiful in that dark uniform, all military brocade and buttons, in gorgeous black fabric, his short, sculpted beard accentuating his hard jawline, and his single scar slashing down his face. “I can think of worse fates,” the shield added.

“Yeah,” Prompto sighed in agreement.

Gladio frowned. “So… what do you do?”

“That your question?” he shot quickly with a little smile.

“Shit,” Gladio chuckled. “I didn’t intend it to be.”

“It’s ok. I won’t count it,” he grinned. “But I don’t give out freebies to everyone, you know…” Gladio smirked, and Prompto continued. “I’m just finishing high school actually,” he said, hoping the shield wouldn’t now find him too young or immature. “But I have no idea what I’m gonna do when I leave.” He prayed he didn't sound childish in comparison to Gladio who had his future all mapped out and waiting for him.

“No idea, huh?”

“No. I mean, I’d love to do a photography or an arts course at university, but I can’t aff-” he broke off, biting his lip. People here were supposed to be fabulously rich, and here he was, running his mouth about not being able to afford it. “I mean, I can’t decide… I guess…” he finished lamely.

Patient and apparently willing to forgive his strangeness, Gladio gave him a half smile, and nodded down a flight of stairs to their right. “We’re gonna head down there. Watch your step, it’s a kinda dark.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” he gushed. “I’m such a klutz, so...” and he promptly slipped on the second step. He caught himself with a hand on the wall, and laughed loudly. “See?”

“Yeah, I see,” Gladio chuckled, stepping a little closer, and placing a hand on his back. It was light, and gentle, and effortlessly polite, but somehow it made Prompto’s heart bungee around in his chest until he was sure he was going to have a heart attack right there. _Not a bad way to go though_ , he thought as he neared the bottom of the first of what he now saw was a long series of staircases leading down to the gardens in stages.

Finally at the bottom of the huge flight of stairs, Prompto looked up and saw the glittering lights in the hedgerows and bushes a little more clearly now. “Oh wow,” he breathed. “This is…” he faltered. “It takes a lot to make me speechless. I mean, sure, I can keep talking and not actually say a lot, but… I have no words for this. Wow.” He looked up in surprise as he heard Gladio’s rumbling laugh. He blushed again.

Music poured from the open doors to the balcony above them, and Gladio offered him his arm. “You wanna walk for a bit?”

Mutely, Prompto bit his lip and nodded, sliding his arm into the crook of Gladio's. His fingers shook and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. It felt like his lungs were full of champagne, and he was afraid to walk in case he tripped, but he began to draw strength from Gladio’s arm as they made there way along the twinkling walkways and paths.

After a while, they came to a spectacular fountain. As Prompto’s huge blue eyes saw it, they went wide. “Oh!” he gasped, letting go of Gladio and rushing forward. The huge, snake-like form of Leviathan rose and crashed through the jets of water, frozen in place, yet looking like she might just come to life at any moment.

“It was a gift from the people of Altissia,” Gladio said as Prompto scampered over to it and immediately stuck his hand into one of the illuminated spurts of water. Droplets spattered all up his arm and over the front of his jacket, but he didn't notice.

“It’s gorgeous! Gods, I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this. Actually, no, I mean, the whole garden is beautiful, and the palace is beautiful, and –” he turned abruptly and stared straight at Gladio with his blue eyes burning. He chewed his lip and said no more, his words seeming to evaporate under the heat of Gladio’s amber gaze.

The huge man smiled shyly and suddenly stared down at his boot. He moved to sit on the side of the fountain.

Prompto watched him, and it suddenly struck him that he must lead a very lonely life. When he found his lips beginning to articulate that thought, however, he turned away, embarrassed.

“You’re right, I guess,” Gladio said. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t have friends or anything in the Crownsguard, but it’s all a bit… intense. Noct has Ignis, his advisor, and there’s a guy he’s friends with at school, but I don’t really have that much to do with them.”

“No?” Prompto asked. He couldn’t help it. He was also wickedly tempted to ask Gladio if he knew anything about this 'friend' at school.

Gladio shook his head. “No. I’m Noct’s shield, and… I mean, I care for him, of course I do, and Iggy’s… well, he’s Iggy,” he sighed fondly, “But my father has drilled it into me that I’m not there to be his friend. I’m there to be his shield.”

“Sounds like you could do with a break,” Prompto said, lowering himself onto the stone beside him.

The lights twinkled softly and the shimmering, magical wall arched high over the palace, the iridescent tiles glowing, masking the stars and the moon from the mortals partying below.

“Sometimes I wish I could,” Gladio admitted, watching the changing hues of the protective wall overhead. “Don’t tell anyone I said that, mind you,” he laughed. “But yeah. I wish I could just get up and head out beyond the wall, and camp beneath the stars for a month. Just me and the sky.”

“Still sounds lonely though,” Prompto said quietly, nudging him delicately in the ribs with his elbow.

Gladio turned his gaze down to stare at the younger boy, and that beautiful face, chiselled by an astral itself it seemed to Prompto, looked so sad. He reached his skinny little hand up and placed it around that colossal jaw.

“I wish I knew your name, Argent,” Gladio rasped, closing his eyes to reveal long lashes. “I don’t think I've ever met anyone as kind as you.”

Prompto’s lips quirked into a smile and he found himself laughing as he drew his hand away. “You barely know me!” he giggled.

Gladio shook his head and opened his eyes again. Prompto gasped at the sight of them, glimmering faintly like candlelight on burnished bronze. “I’m trained to read people. I can’t see beneath that mask of yours, Argent, but I think I can see what you’re like well enough.”

Nervousness fluttered like a million butterflies in his lungs, and he rammed his mouth shut in case they all flew out and filled the air between them.

Gladio was laughing again. “And now I’ve made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. Noct told me just this morning that I’m always running my mouth.”

“Can I ask what he’s like?”

Those amber eyes blinked in surprise, but then he sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re interested in the prince, eh?”

“Not like that!” Prompto guffawed, almost falling backwards into the water. “I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Gladio’s scarred cheek coloured a little. “Well, no harm in telling you a bit about him, I guess…” He ran a hand through his hair and adjusted the ribbon on his mask again. “Damned thing,” he snorted.

“You could take it off, you know…”

He looked at him and snorted. “Coming from you, Argent, who won’t even tell me his name…”

“Yeah, it’s rich, I know. I’m sorry.” Prompto looked away and stared up at the palace.

“It’s ok,” Gladio chuckled. “I’m teasing. Now, you wanna know what his royal highness is really like?”

“Wouldn’t mind a different perspective…” Prompto said archly.

A frown flickered across Gladio’s brows, but he didn’t comment. “Well, he’s really smart, but he’s so damned lazy that Ignis basically has to drag his sorry ass out of bed, and dress him himself if he’s gonna get anywhere,” Gladio smirked.

That aligned with what Prompto knew already. “Yeah? And does he train with you?” Oh gods. The thought of this man training, muscles straining as he benched more than twice Prompto’s weight, sweat dripping…

Gladio nodded and Prompto tried to swallow. “Yeah. We train most days after school. When he’s not fallen asleep in the car and refusing to wake up…”

Prompto laughed harder than he should have done as Gladio regaled him with stories of Noct’s childhood. He’d heard most of them before from Noctis, but it was refreshing to imagine them from another angle. Time passed, and they walked slowly around the whole garden, but as they passed the foot of the steps to the palace above, Prompto heard the call go up for the last dances echo on the still night air.

He froze, and Gladio turned to look at him, a question burning in his eyes. “Argent, I… I’ve had an amazing time with you tonight. Will you… I know it’s kinda corny, will you dance with me?”

“Out here?” Prompto asked, feeling hopeful. No way he wanted to trip and stumble his way through a pavane or a gavotte inside where everyone could see and anyone could get caught up in the tornado of shame and chaos. “I mean, I’m not a dancer, like, at all, but sure… if you’d like…”

“Yeah,” Gladio rumbled. “I’d like that.”

“Ok then.” He gulped and bit his soft lip nervously.

“Take my hand,” Gladio asked.

“You know,” Prompto said as he slid his shaking and slightly sweaty hand into Gladio’s enormous palm and watched as it was engulfed, disappearing entirely, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look like the kind of guy who’d know how to dance…”

“Let alone the kind of guy who’d ask _another guy_ to dance?” he finished, arching an eyebrow as he spun Prompto slowly around on the pavement beneath the palace.

Prompto’s mouth went dry. “Yeah.”

“I don’t necessarily hide it, but…” he raised his arm and Prompto twirled playfully beneath, a huge grin plastered across his face. “But then again, I don’t advertise it either.” He caught Prompto as he finished his twirl, and pulled him close. "In answer to your original question, we Amicitias are an old, noble family. Dancing and court etiquette was just another part of my training, along with combat, and strategy etc..."

“So... I have to ask...” Prompto found himself saying a little while later as he got a very close look at those golden eyes before his own face was pressed against Gladio’s massive chest for a moment. "Why me?"

Without hesitation, Gladio murmured, “Your eyes.”

“My eyes?” Prompto blinked. The mask got jostled as Gladio embraced him more firmly before letting him go and continuing their slow dance around their quiet corner of the garden. Fear filling his gut that the mask would come off, and he scrambled with one hand to make sure it stayed on.

“Yeah. Your eyes.” His voice was gritty, and his eyes were wide and nervous. “Can I kiss you?”

Prompto’s heart stalled. He nodded, just a little.

Gladio laced his fingers carefully through Prompto’s golden blond hair, tenderly testing the contours of the back of his head as he pulled the smaller boy in towards him, mindful of his mask. When the shield’s lips landed on Prompto’s, he thought he was going to die. No one had ever kissed him on the lips, and he had never imagined a kiss could feel like that. His heart pounded so hard he thought he was going to pass out, and the lights of the garden beyond blurred and then went out completely. There was nothing else but Gladio in that moment.

A soft moan escaped Gladio and he began to run his other hand down Prompto’s skinny back to his waist, and Prompto began to pant. The shield pulled back.

“Won’t you tell me who you are?” Gladio whispered.

“If I do, I think everything might be different,” Prompto sniffed, shuffling on the spot. His already blurry vision was still a bit dark around the edges.

Gladio shook his head. “I don’t understand.” His eyes were massive, full of confusion and longing. “Can you at least tell me your name?”

Prompto bit his lip, closed his eyes, and took a step back. “I… my name… my name is…”

The clock tower tolled midnight and Prompto went white with fear. The magic. The magic would wear off.

He froze like a rabbit again, and then, with a last look at Gladio, he stammered, “I have to leave.”

Gladio didn’t move, clearly taken by surprise.

“It’s hard to explain…” Prompto gabbled as he began to stumble backwards. “Cats, and pumpkins, and…”

“Wait, what?” Gladio demanded, beginning to come to his senses, realising that Prompto was for real as he backed away.

“You’ve been awfully nice,” he breathed. “Better than I could ever have hoped for. Thank you for a wonderful evening. I’ve loved it. Every second.”

And then he bolted.

He immediately tripped over his own feet, landing hard on the pavement, but he was up and away before Gladio had even moved. There was the soft ripping of a buckle as it tore off his shoe, and the bright ring of glass hitting stone without shattering, but Prompto kept running.

He took the stairs three at a time, leaping away like a deer, back out of the palace the only way he knew, which was through the ballroom. He wove through the guests who were all too preoccupied with taking their own masks off in a flurry of black and white balloons which fell in a cascade from a net on the ceiling as midnight chimed.

Prompto vanished amid the falling balloons as Gladio arrived at the open doors, panting hard and sweating slightly from the effort of powering his heavy body up the huge flight of stairs. “Wait!” he bellowed, drawing astounded looks from nearby guests.

Noctis, taking a rare moment alone on the balcony with Ignis, was drawn over to him by the commotion, and grabbed his arm. “Gladio, what’s going on?” he hissed.

“He… I…” Gladio faltered. “He just…” He clearly had no idea what to say as he stared wide-eyed from the prince to his advisor and back. “Excuse me, highness.” And he ducked away, tripping over stray balloons and obstacles in his blind hurry to catch up with his fleeing quarry, his Argent.

Scuttling down the stairs on the other side of the palace, Prompto saw the white car waiting for him, the driver pacing up and down frantically beside it. When he caught sight of him, the chauffeur waved his hands and hissed at him in a very feline display of anger and frustration. “Come on!” he yelled as Prompto hit the bottom of the enormous flight of steps and _sprinted_ at him.

He dove headfirst into the back of the car and clung on as they raced out of the gates. Looking back through the rear window, he saw the figure of Gladio storming down the staircase like a great bull in black, charging after them, a single white balloon trailing behind him, snagged on one of the buttons of his cuff. They shot out through the palace gates before anyone could stop them, but they were nowhere near the old Argentum mansion when the magic began to wear off.

The first thing Prompto noticed was the smell of red wine. He looked down and saw that the silver and ivory of his beautiful jacket was now fading like autumn frost in the sunshine, and beneath the unravelling, vanishing strands, he found his old outfit, torn, tattered and ruined. He leapt for the car door before the vehicle turned into a pumpkin and left him maimed and trapped inside the disgusting orange vegetable, and he and the cat barely made it, bailing out of the car into a side street before the pumpkin careered off at break-neck speed into a signpost on the other side of the road. It disintegrated with a horrible splatter.

Skidding into the dirt, Prompto landed hard on his back and lay there, winded and dazed, for a long time. He'd hit his head as he had crashed to the floor, and when he blinked the stars from his vision, he saw the cream coloured cat standing on his chest, licking his nose. He laughed softly. “Well, wasn’t that an adventure?” he said, picking the cat up and tucking it under his arm.

He walked all the way back to the edge of the city cuddling the cat and singing the song that had been playing when he and Gladio had danced. “What a beautiful dream,” he said, looking up at the sky. “Thank you, Fairy Godmother. That was…” he sighed. “That was incredible.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Noctis/Prompto friendship fluff which I wanted to write, and stressed-out Gladio before the finale in the next chapter.

“I don’t believe it!” Gladio bellowed, his voice ricocheting off the monitors in the gate-guards’ room. “What do you mean the car just vanished? It’s not fucking magic!”

“I mean just that, sir,” the burly guard said. “You can see here from the traffic cameras: the white car rounds that corner, but the first camera on the next street doesn’t show anything at all.”

“Replay it,” Gladio demanded. “What’s that?” he asked, stooping down and peering at the screen as something caught his eye.

“What’s what?” the guard asked.

“Replay it.”

“Sir.”

“There!” he barked, jabbing his finger at the screen. “The fuck is that?”

What looked to be a large ball bounced across the empty street at speed and broke apart as it hit a post on the opposite side. “Dunno, sir. You want me to send a team to look?”

“No,” Gladio sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, forget it, ok?”

“Sir?”

“Just… Ugh, never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Gladio stamped away, boot heels ringing on the security room floor as he headed for the barracks and the training centre.

The shield’s mood deteriorated that week, and by Wednesday, four days after the night of the ball, people had started to avoid him in the barracks. Halfway through an evening training session after school, Noctis finally turned on Gladio with an angry yelp.

“Gladio, would you focus?” Noctis snarled as the shield dumped him on his arse for what felt like the hundredth time that session. He was still blinking the effects of a direct blow to the face out of his vision.

“Fuck, Noct, I’m sorry.” The shield reached down and hauled the crown prince to his feet.

Noctis winced and unabashedly rubbed his arse cheek where he’d landed on it. He grumbled quietly about Gladio not getting enough sleep or something, and the shield found himself agreeing. “Seriously, what’s got into you today?” Noctis demanded.

“I can’t concentrate. I’m sorry, Noct. I…”

“It’s still about that guy from the ball, isn’t it?” he asked after a moment, leaning on the training sword for support as he sucked the oxygen back into his body again.

Gladio nodded. “He…” he faltered, suddenly looking vulnerable. “He just… _fled_ from me.” He turned his golden eyes to his friend and asked, “When you and Iggy said I scare people, Noct, did… did you really mean it? I’m not _that_ awful am I?”

Noctis took in the lines which creased his shield’s brow, and perhaps for the first time saw him as others must see him: six foot four of pure, rippling muscle, with a big scar down his cheek which he’d earned protecting Noct a year earlier. He tried to shrug, tried to look casual, but Gladio was trained to read people instantly.

The shield turned away and said, “Forget it. I’m sorry. Look, I shouldn’t be getting distracted with all that stuff anyway. I’m here to train you and to protect you. Nothing else matters.”

“Your happiness matters, Gladio,” the prince fired back with a surprising amount of command in his young voice. “I know I’m a brat, and I know I come across as cold and emotionless, but I’m not. I care about you. You, and Iggy, and…” he paused, his breath catching in his throat as he recalled the last of his very short list of friends, “And Prompto are all the friends I have. I got a few allies, sure, but no one else I trust. I want you guys to be happy.”

Gladio forced himself to smile, but still excused himself and stumped out of the training centre, and barged straight into the advisor by accident, sending him ricocheting off his shoulder with a grunt. Ignis straightened his glasses, but he shook his head calmly when Gladio tried to apologise. Before the big shield could power off down the corridor, however, Ignis asked, “Gladio, might I have a word?”

“What, Ignis?” the shield huffed, turning on a dime and attempting to stare the man down.

Except Ignis was not far off him in height, and he was not a man who could be intimidated. “Gladio,” he said softly. “Come on, talk to me.”

“I didn’t think you meant it literally when you asked me for ‘a word’,” he spat. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Something is clearly on your mind. I was watching your session with Noctis, and I have to say I think you went a little hard on him.”

“Come to watch your boyfriend work out?” he snapped, and he was instantly made to regret it as Ignis’ face hardened dangerously.

“Gladio,” he barked indignantly.

“I’m sorry, Iggy. Truly, I am. That was uncalled for.” He broke off and shook his head, closing his eyes and turning his face away.

Ignis sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose again. “Look, you know you can talk to me about anything, don’t you? I know it’s an affair of the heart…”

The big shield looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Ig, you’re the first person I told when I finally figured out I was attracted to guys, and I’m grateful you were a listening ear then. But that doesn’t mean I come to you to talk about everything I feel like we’re fourteen year old girls, ok?”

“I’m not prying for the sake of it, Gladio,” Ignis snapped. “I wanted to _help_ you. I want to help you find your young nobleman and put you in touch with him. You clearly enjoyed yourselves together, and the dignitary of Insomnia cannot be so numerous and vast that he has vanished without trace.”

“Not quite without trace,” Gladio said, reluctantly letting a half-smirk show on his tired face.

Ignis’ interests were piqued. “Oh?”

“He left a shoe buckle behind.”

Ignis quirked an eyebrow. “A shoe buckle? How exactly did that happen?”

“You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Gladio snarled. “As it happens, he fell as he was fucking _fleeing_ from me just before the masks came off. He tripped up the stairs of the palace steps and it came off. He didn’t even stop to pick it up before he flew up the stairs back into the party. But he dived into the back of his car and it was screeching away before I could reach him.” Ignis’ face was a calm, silent question. “Yeah,” Gladio sighed, “I already tried to trace it on the traffic cameras, but it _literally_ vanished.”

“Magic?”

“Fuck knows,” Gladio breathed. “I lost them between the gap in coverage. It doesn’t appear on any cameras after that, and I even searched the area on foot on my day off. There was absolutely nothing there except a smashed up pumpkin and some flower petals.”

“How strange,” Ignis said. “Have you tried social media?”

“Huh?”

Ignis rolled his iron-green eyes and said, “I know you don’t like technology much, but social media is a great way to reach a great number of people and find things. If we can get it to go viral, then maybe there’s a chance he’ll see it.”

“What’s ‘ _it_ ’? I don’t even have any photographs of him or anything. I have _nothing_ , Ignis. Nothing except a handful of memories and the colour of his fucking-stupid-beautiful eyes.”

Ignis had to smile. “You have the buckle.”

“You’re gonna slap a picture of a glass buckle on social media and see what comes back? Please, I’d rather do a door-to-door on my own.”

“Well, it may come to that yet,” Ignis said dryly. “Send me a photo of the buckle and we’ll get the palace’s marketing officer on it.”

“Fuck no,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not. I’m not having my personal life dealt with by the palace staff. No. It’s bad enough that you’re suggesting social media at all.”

Noctis’ voice rang out from the direction of the changing rooms. “What’s going on?”

Gladio rolled his eyes and growled like a sabretooth. “Just when I thought this couldn’t get any worse. Look, Iggy, just forget it, ok?”

“Forget what, Gladio?” the prince pressed. “Could this, by any chance, have anything to do with the reason there’s an enormous bruise on my butt-cheek right now?”

“Highness,” Ignis asked, stepping forward, “Are you alright?”

Noct didn’t take his eyes off Gladio. “I’m fine,” he said evenly, “Iggy can kiss it better later,” he deadpanned. “But I want to know what the hell is eating this guy up so badly. He’s like a garula in rut right now.”

Relaxing just enough to let out a snort, Ignis turned to Gladio and said, “He’s still lamenting the disappearance of his mystery young man from the ball. He vanished before the masks came off, and there’s been no trace of him.”

“Still? It’s been days. What about security?”

“The name on his invitation read " _Magnus Incognito_ ",” Gladio spat. “And the guards were too stupid to know what it means.”

“Unknown nobleman?” Noctis asked, looking at Ignis, who nodded. “I never signed an invite to an unknown nobleman. How did he get hold of one?”

Gladio shook his head. “I don’t know, but when I looked through the invites that were handed in, I found it. It has your signature on in ink, and it matches perfectly. He’s good, whoever he is.”

“What was he here for? Just a party crasher, or…”

The three of them stood in silence as the realisation sank in. He could have been here for more nefarious reasons.

“But he stayed with me literally all evening,” Gladio said as he stared at Ignis. “If he was here for something else, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Besides, he was bumbling and nervous, and he’d have made a terrible spy…”

Noctis snorted suddenly and the other two looked at him.

“What is it, highness?” Ignis asked.

“It’s Prompto.”

“What?” Ignis and Gladio chorused.

“What?” Noctis blurted, “No, no, no,” he laughed, suddenly realising what they were thinking. “Not the mystery guy. _Ha,_ no. He just messaged me a goofy photo that’s all.” He held up the phone to show them the picture of a pale cat on Prompto’s windowsill, lounging on its back with all its paws in the air, playing with something in the photographer’s hand, which was only just in shot.

Gladio took a cursory glance at it and then looked away, lost in his thoughts and disappointment, while Ignis took a little more time to appreciate it. The boy was tickling the cat’s nose with white flower petals. “White camellia,” Ignis murmured to himself.

“Huh?” Noctis asked.

“The flowers. They’re white camellias.”

“Ignis, you’re a fount of useless information, you know that?”

He smacked Noctis lightly on the back of the head and said, “You’ll thank me one day for all the hours I’ve put into learning all my ‘useless information’, highness. And when you do, I expect you to send me a bunch of white camellias.”

“Why?”

“Because in the language of flowers, camellias of all colours can signify admiration, perfection and when presented to a man, a camellia is also thought to bring luck.”

“And _white_ ones? Don’t tell me, wedding bells?”

“No, they mean ‘waiting’.”

Gladio snorted and walked away, bored with talk of flowers, but Noctis stayed, an odd look akin to guilt flooding across his sapphire eyes. “Waiting, huh?” He looked carefully over his shoulder and checked that no one could see them, before pulling him into a deep kiss. His body pressed right up against his advisor’s, the lean lines of both men coming together in a moment of surprising heat and passion. “I’m sorry,” the prince hissed as he eventually pulled away, his hand still tangled in Ignis’ hair. “I wish we didn’t have to hide.”

Ignis blushed, breathless, and straightened his glasses, before stepping back, glancing around to find only Gladio staring at them from the doorway. The shield smiled once, a gesture of infinite trust and sadness, and then turned away.

The next morning, on the advisor’s study desk were three huge vases of white camellias, each one with the same gift card. “Wait for me.”

 

xxx

 

The next day in class, Noctis was dozing again. A sharp dig in the ribs woke him and he jerked upright with a soft snort. “Noct!” Prompto hissed as the teacher prowled down the rows of desks towards him. Only a few days after Noct’s birthday, it was now September, and they had not been back at school more than a week, and, much to everyone’s disgust, they were already being tested.

“What?”

“At least _pretend_ you’re working!” Prompto laughed. He was already more than half way through the assignment, his awful spidery handwriting scrawling all over the answer sheet and up the sides of the paper with bits he’d forgotten or wanted to cram in afterwards, but Noctis hadn’t even opened the front page of the questionnaire.

“Shit,” he whispered, scrambling for his pen and turning through the paper so that it would look like he was at least on the second page. Reading the question at the top, he sighed and began to scribble. At least the prince was smart, even if he was incredibly lazy.

When the bell went, Noct handed in his finished paper in with the rest of them, and flashed Prompto a wide-eyed look of relief that said he thought he’d got away with it.

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” Prompto chuckled, slapping him on the back as they left the room.

“Yeah. I think Iggy might actually be proud at how much I remembered on that one. I’m lucky it was on Lucian politics…”

Prompto yawned widely and blinked, rubbing his tired eyes.

“You ok?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. His sight wasn’t exactly great, and straining so hard to see the test clearly had made them hurt. Distances were better, close-up was, well, blurry. “What’s that bruise on your cheek?” Prompto asked, eyeing the purple stain on Noct’s cheekbone.

The prince pulled a face and said, “Gladio.”

“He hit you?” Prompto was horrified, but the prince only laughed and waved a hand dismissively.

“Not on purpose. He’s been kinda… distracted, lately.”

Prompto’s eyes widened curiously. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” The corridor was heaving with students all heading for lunch, and Noct’s voice was drowned out a little in the din so that Prompto had to keep asking him to repeat himself. Eventually the prince said, “I’ll save it for lunch. It’s something else you missed out on by being sick for my party…”

He shot Prompto a look that went right to the pit of his stomach, but Prompto cracked a wide grin and said, “You’re just pissed you went to all the trouble of writing me an invitation that I didn’t use.”

“Yeah, _sure_ ,” Noct said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Seriously though, I wish you could have been there.”

“It wasn’t _that_ bad, surely?” he asked innocently.

They made their way to the rooftop where they liked to enjoy a quiet lunch. Prompto was surprisingly good at picking locks, and he fiddled with the door until it swung open and they could head out into the warm September air to eat their food alone and in peace.

Prompto had, for once, managed to find time to pack himself some lunch that day, but it still wasn’t very much. Leftovers from a roast dinner he’d cooked the lady Izunia and her daughters the previous weekend. It was a little past its best at four days old, but it was all he had had to work with. Noctis, of course, had the most delicious looking bento from Ignis, and Prompto’s pale blue eyes stared longingly at it for a fraction too long.

“You want some?” Noct asked, shunting the box towards him. “I’m still stuffed from breakfast, and, no offence, but that looks kinda… grey…” he said, eyeing Prompto’s food like it might start sprouting malboros at any minute.

Prompto’s stomach howled at him and he nodded slowly. “If you don’t mind…?”

Noct shook his head and picked up a note which Ignis had left on the top of the food, sealed in a little plastic bag so as not to get it greasy. He didn’t offer to share what Ignis had put in the note, but while Prompto ate he shot a discrete look at the prince, and saw his cheeks blushing and a deep, quiet smile spreading over his face.

Noctis looked up and caught Prompto staring at him. “What?” he challenged.

“Nothing,” Prompto said dreamily, with his mouth full of something so delicious he was seeing stars. “I was just thinking it’d be nice to have someone treat me like Ignis treats you. That’s all.”

“Shut up, you big girl,” the prince laughed, stuffing the note in his pocket and turning away.

Prompto laughed nervously and leaned back on his hands for a moment, crossing his ankles and sighing. He eyed the bruise again. “So why is your shield so pissed off with you that he’s taking it out on your face?”

A little laugh rumbled out of Noct and he leaned his head back languorously to enjoy the warm sun on his pale face. “He’s not pissed at me,” he sighed. “He met this guy at the ball.”

Prompto’s heart lurched and he almost choked on the remnants of food in his mouth. “What?”

“Ah,” Noct said awkwardly. “Yeah, my shield’s gay as well, just, don’t tell anyone. I don’t know if anyone else knows…”

“That wasn’t what I was surprised at,” Prompto said quickly. “I mean…”

Noct frowned.

“Anyway, so why is he pissed off with this guy he met at your party?”

“Because he ran off at midnight or something. Iggy and I reckon Gladio just scared him off, but the big guy’s insisting it was something else.”

“What? Why would you guys think he scared this other guy off?”

Noctis laughed again. “Prom, you haven’t met Gladio. He’s like six foot five, all muscle, and if you catch him unawares, he looks like he wants to kill you. Slowly. With a rusty knife.” Prompto swallowed. “He doesn’t, of course,” the prince added with a laugh. “I mean, he’s tough and prickly as an old Bandersnatch, but he’s actually kinda sweet.”

Prompto’s heart was still bungee-jumping around his ribcage. “So he’s pissed at the guy for running away…?”

“He’s also pissed because he didn’t get a name, didn’t get to see him without his mask on, and has no idea how to find him. He’s been moping solidly since Saturday. And that’s bad for _everyone_. I think the infirmary has seen more Gladio-related training injuries this week than it has all year.”

“Shit…”

The prince lay back in the dust of the roof apparently not caring if his blazer got dirty, and sighed deeply. “I wish you’d been there, Prom,” he said suddenly.

His eyes were closed, the long black lashes resting softly on his cheeks, his hair fluttering slightly in the gentle breeze, and in that moment, Prompto was floored, yet again, by how beautiful the prince was. Gladio had been handsome in a wild, strong, rugged kind of way, and Ignis was handsome in a classical sense, with his lean body and straight, chiselled features, but Noctis was an intoxicating blend of soft and strong. Prompto finished his lunch without choking on it, and then leaned back as well, resting the back of his head on the hollow of Noct’s shoulder. The prince chuckled softly and ruffled his best friend’s hair in a rare gesture of affection.

“You mind?” Prompto asked, suddenly realising that the prince was very much in love with Ignis, and might not like some scrawny pleb fawning all over him, even if it was harmless.

“No,” Noctis replied sleepily. “It’s nice.”

“I…” Prompto began, uncertain how to express himself. “It must suck, for you…”

“What must?

“You know… Iggy… Luna…”

The world lurched a bit as Noctis inhaled deeply and let it go in a rush, making Prompto’s head rise and fall. “Yeah. It sucks. I didn’t think it was possible to be ‘in love’ at seventeen,” Noctis said quietly. “But… Iggy’s… Iggy’s the one, you know?” He snorted, embarrassed at baring his raw feelings, even in front of his friend.

Prompto nodded mutely. “You think I’ll ever get a happy ending?” he asked after a while. He hadn’t meant to voice his thoughts aloud, and was rewarded for his stupidity but a sharp smack on the back of his head.

“Course you will, you big dummy,” Noctis scoffed. “What kind of question is that?”

Prompto sighed. “I just meant…” Tears prickled his eyes and he had to bite his lip to keep himself from spilling all his awful history out right there. He was so ashamed. He’d let himself be used by his stepmother and stepsisters. He hadn’t been strong enough to realise that they were never going to change. And yet, he still persisted.

They lay like that in silence for a while before Noctis spoke again, changing tack a bit. “Prom, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You know I’m into guys, right?”

“Unless Ignis is in fact a six foot tall woman with an unusually deep voice, yeah, I figured.”

Noct laughed softly. “So… where do you sit… you know…?”

“Am I gay, you mean?” he asked brightly.

He could tell Noctis was blushing, even without looking at him. Prompto fixed his blue eyes on the fluffy clouds scudding past overhead, and sighed. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I like girls but I like boys too. I’m kind of… I dunno.” He huffed a laugh and added, “Kinda lame answer, right?”

Noct shook his head. “It’s actually a very ‘you’ answer. I figured you’d just kind of love everyone.”

Prompto snorted.

“Seriously,” Noctis said. “It’s ok.”

They didn’t speak again for a long time, lying there breathing quietly, Prompto watching the clouds and listening to the soft, even breathing of the prince beneath him. They only moved again when the bell sounded to signal the end of lunch. They had five minutes to get to chemistry, but neither of them felt like getting up. Reluctantly, Prompto hauled himself to his feet and stretched out his hand to Noct. Noct was, in fact, fast asleep.

He kicked the soles of his feet and made Noctis jump again. “Get up, your royal narcolept-ness. The vast wonders of chemistry await us.”

“Ugh.”

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Noctis only fell asleep twice more, and clumsy Prompto didn’t get hit in the head too many times in their gym class. Volleyball was not his strongest game, though he was better at it than soccer. Soccer was a nightmare mess of flailing limbs and sore shins for Prompto. Noct was, as in all things, good but lazy.

Prompto was finishing up in the changing rooms, having taken longest out of everyone to get undressed and showered, waiting until everyone had gone through the showers, even if it meant cold water. To his surprise, when he came out of the showers with only his boxers on and a towel in his hands, he saw Noctis still sitting on the bench in the changing rooms, playing something on his phone. He was so quiet that Prompto had thought everyone had gone.

Noct’s eyes went wide when he saw the skinny figure of his friend emerging. He didn’t look like a seventeen year old. His body was so thin he looked closer to fifteen, and there were bruises on his ribcage and arms that Noctis had only seen in the Crownsguard changing rooms. They were the kind of bruises that came from punches and blows. “Prom,” he breathed.

“Don’t.” His tone was so hard, so unexpectedly sharp, that Noctis actually shut up.

After a few minutes, when Prompto had stuffed his head and arms into his shirt and climbed into his trousers, Noctis said, “You want to come back to mine tonight?”

“I can’t,” he said softly. “I’ve got stuff at home I have to do. But thanks.”

He didn’t meet Noct’s eye for the rest of the short journey out into the playground, and when he saw the smart black car waiting for the prince, Prompto made up some gabbled excuse about forgetting his phone in the changing room and seeing Noctis tomorrow. He didn’t fancy seeing Ignis, and he knew that Noct would only try again to get him to come home with him.

Back in the locker room, he felt shame and panic begin to rise in his lungs, constricting his chest. Noctis had seen what the lady Izunia did to him. What he _let_ her do to him because he wasn’t strong enough to stand up to her. He was pathetic. He was nothing. Tears stung his eyes and his breath came short.

The ringing of his phone caught his attention before he barrelled into a full panic attack, and he forced himself to look at it. It was _her_. Great. “Hello?” He trembled as he answered.

“I need you to go and order another case of wine on your way home,” she said without preamble. “We’re running low. You should have checked it last week. You didn’t, did you?”

“No madam, I didn’t,” he said. His dejected little voice rang off the walls of the empty changing room and seemed to rattle down his ear canals back into his brain.

She barked at him to pick up one or two other things on his way home. He knew he wouldn’t have time to get to all the shops before they closed, but he set off at a fast jog, his school rucksack bashing into this back as he flew out of the gates and along the road in the opposite direction to the prince’s black car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for your comments on my story so far. I didn't expect it to get any reaction really, and I'm so glad you like it!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLUFF WARNING. MAJOR FLUFF WARNING.  
> The final chapter, in which Prompto suffers a bit longer, before the inevitable happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say wow and thank you to everyone who's left kudos and comments on this story. I did not expect it to be so well received , and I'm really touched that you took the time to leave me your thoughts on it! This little golden sunshine chocobo and his big dummy Gladio were super fun to write, and I hope you like this chapter as much as the rest. I had originally intended to leave it before the final section, but it wrote itself, so I put it in. I hope you think it works... Thanks again!

Much later that Thursday evening, the lady Izunia demanded another bottle of wine. He’d barely managed to sit down after doing all the washing up from their meal which seemed like it was never going to end, it was almost midnight, and Prompto had school the next day. Other than picking a few scraps whilst cooking their meal, he hadn’t had a chance to eat anything himself in all the rush of completing her shopping list, and he was exhausted.

Stifling a yawn, he answered her shout by appearing quietly in the doorway to the living room. “Which one would you like, Madam?” he asked, hanging back anxiously and trying not to sway on the spot.

She tutted and rolled her eyes. “I can hardly _believe_ you even had to ask, you stupid boy,” she scoffed, her accent making her words seem all the more scathing. “Another bottle of the Tenebraen 'Oracle', obviously.”

“Yes, Madam,” he said, bobbing a nervous bow and leaving the room to retrieve it from the cellars. He hated the cellars. They were dark, and full of spidery corners, but he sucked in a breath and hit the lights, trying to ignore the skittering of a few cockroaches as he began searching for one of the last of his father’s nicest wines.

When he returned, he found that his two stepsisters, sitting beside the fire, were gushing about how gorgeous Prince Noctis had looked at his ball. It had been five days since the prince’s party, and yet it was all his wretched family had talked of since they had returned from the palace. Still, Prompto didn’t really mind. He’d had the most amazing time. He felt bad about Gladio now though after what Noctis had said, but he was sure the shield would soon have forgotten him. He just wasn’t worth the effort.

Just as he tried to shove the memory of that wonderful kiss back out of his mind, he heard the girls discussing the very man who had given it to him. “Sure, Prince Noctis was divine, but did you see his shield?” Anastasia added. “Gods, Amicitia is such a titan.”

“I did,” her sister replied. “Those arms, and that scar… I wonder how he got it?”

Anastasia twittered, “Defending the prince, no doubt. Ugh, so valiant!”

“Yeah, but he spent the whole evening with some scrawny little blond, did you see?” Drizella sneered.

“A blonde?” Anastasia snipped. “No. To be honest, I wasn’t looking at the women he was flirting with. _I_ was too busy dancing with as many men as I could, unlike you. You’ll die a filthy old spinster!”

 _You mean you danced with as many poor men as your mother could force you on,_ Prompto thought, still listening nervously in the corridor outside.

“Ha! No, no, sister,” Drizella snorted with evident delight, ignoring the spinster quip. “He wasn’t with a _girl_ , he was with a boy! I heard he spent the _entire_ evening with some skinny little nobleman who didn’t look old enough for his voice to have even broken!” She finished with a peel of cruel laughter, and Prompto thought he heard her mother joining in as well. His heart cracked a little bit. No way Gladio would still be interested in him if he knew who Prompto really was.

“No way the shield’s gay,” Anastasia hissed, loving the delicious scandal.

“But did you see the way he behaved when his ‘date’ fled just as the masks were coming off? _I_ did. I was there. What a scene!” Drizella scoffed.

“Well, what a waste if he _is_ gay,” her sister murmured, sitting back with a soft flump in her chair.

Prompto froze in the doorway, his hands shaking. What if they found out that _Prompto_ was the scrawny blond who had spent the whole evening with the prince’s shield? What if they found out _he_ was interested in men too? Gods, they’d tear him to pieces.

And before he knew it, the bottle had slipped from his grasp and shattered on the stone threshold of the living room. Red wine sprayed and spilled all over the pale carpet just beyond, and shards of dark glass flew everywhere. The smell of it turned his stomach as memories of the evening of the ball rushed back into his mind.

The three women jumped and cried out in shock at the sound, and then the lady Izunia rounded on him, rising out of her chair to fix him with a terrible stare.

“You clumsy child!” she shrieked, leaping fully out of the armchair by the fire. “Do you _know_ how much that bottle was worth? Gods, look at this mess. You’ll be lucky if I don’t flay you alive for that.”

 _You wouldn’t. You still need me to do all your shit for you,_ Prompto thought dejectedly as he cowered away from her advancing figure.

Her black and white dressing gown billowed ominously, her hair down and unusually unkempt making her look wilder and fiercer than ever. “Well, what have you to say for yourself?” Her eyes burned savagely.

“Nothing, Madam. I’m sorry. The bottle slipped.” It didn’t sound like his own voice. It was dead, and distant.

“ _Nothing?_ Well,” she spat, “You’ll not see the light of day for a month! To start with, I’m going to lock you in your room,” and she grabbed him by his skinny arm before he could react, and dragged him up the stairs to his attic room. Only on Saturday afternoon, nearly two full days later did she release the lock. As she cuffed him over the head, she barked at that he wasn’t to leave the house.

He’d missed his shift at the diner where he worked weekends, and on Sunday morning he got a call to say he’d been fired for not showing up. Somehow though, he couldn’t even find the energy to care.

By Sunday afternoon, after finally getting some food in his stomach, he had cleaned the house top to bottom, according to lady Izunia’s orders, and was just finishing the hallway when everything changed.

Prompto's lavender eyes watched the mop head swing rhythmically back and forth, back and forth, almost meditatively, as he cleaned the marble entrance hall of the mansion. He’d spent the whole day cleaning, and all that was left as the warm Sunday afternoon arced by outside was the floor. He was barefoot, having run out of socks that didn’t have holes in, and the marble was chilly beneath his soles.

Searching for a shred of happiness, he hummed that tune again, that last dance with Gladio, and as his heart began to lighten just a little, he even twirled around the mop handle as though it were his dance partner.

A little while later he added the words and danced across the floor, still sweeping the mop head across the tiles of the floor.

_Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,_

_When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen:_

_Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?_

_'Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so._

He was so absorbed in the moment that he didn't hear the car drawing up outside or the pair of footsteps approaching the front doors which he’d flung open to air the stuffy house on the fine early-autumn day.

xxx

The second of the two figures walking up the path to the house froze. He saw the skinny boy, wearing faded and torn black clothes which left patches of his pale skin showing beneath, singing softly and dancing as he cleaned, and knew instantly who it was. _He knew._ He couldn’t breathe. He couldn't believe it. After _days_ of fruitless searching, with nothing to go on, there he was. He was right there. Noct’s best friend.

Looking closer as he twirled slowly around the mop, humming, his voice husky but sweet, Gladio saw that the boy had an old, yellowing bruise on one cheek. But then his knees went weak when he saw the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose as the boy turned his ear, catching the sound of someone coming down the stairs behind him.

Transfixed, Gladio bit his lip, utterly unable to move. His little Argent had freckles. He was so _beautiful._ Simultaneously so fragile and yet so tough. The boy hadn't noticed the prince and his bodyguard arriving, and the pair halted in shock, unseen, their eyes also drawn to the figure walking down the staircase inside.

xxx

The lady Izunia saw the boy dancing and her eyes narrowed, coming to a halt beside where he had frozen at the sound of her footsteps. "What on Eos do you think you're doing?" she sneered. "And look at all that dirty water!" She glared at the bucket which was, in truth, rather grey in colour.

Then, to the astonishment of all the onlookers, she put her toe on the rim of the pail and, with a wicked grin, kicked it over, sending a wave of filthy water spilling all over the boy’s bare feet and the stone floor. She snatched the mop out of the thunderstruck boy's hands and, in the same movement while he was distracted, dealt him a vicious backhand across the face.

The slap rang loudly off the stones, and after the heartbeat of stunned silence which followed it, the boy yelped, clutching his hands to his cheek where her ring had drawn blood. He reeled backwards and slipped on the wet floor, landing hard on his hip with another cry, his ragged clothes soaking up the dirty water like a sponge.

"Gods, you're _useless_! You can never do anything properly!" she screeched, flinging the mop down at him where he had fallen and sending murky spots of water splattering over his face and up the wall behind him. "You'll have to do the whole floor again."

The prince, who had been watching in horror, suddenly came back to his senses and darted into the house. He hurried straight over to his best friend and knelt beside him and placing his hand on Prompto’s shoulder. "Prompto," he murmured. "Prom, are you ok?"

"Noct?" Prompto gasped breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"

Noctis shook his head, unable to speak for a moment he was so angry. He glared up at the lady Izunia over his shoulder before turning back to him. "When you didn’t come to school on Friday, and weren't answering your phone, I made the secretary give me your address. I was worried about you." He bared his teeth in a snarl and added, "And with good reason, it seems."

The lady Izunia didn't seem to know how to react to the sudden and unexpected arrival of the crown prince of Lucis in her house, and sank into an awkward curtsey. "Your _highness_ ," she simpered. "I can only apologise for the state of affairs. I... Prompto here was just..."

"Yeah?" Noct challenged, rising to his feet like a midgardsormr. "Yeah? He was what? Getting a face full of abuse?"

The lady actually found it within herself to blush. "Highness," she crooned, trying to placate him. "I'm his _mother_..."

In the heartbeat of disbelief left behind after her statement, Prompto stood unexpectedly and, clenching his fists at his sides, burst out with a torrent of words that poured straight from his enormous heart. "You are _not_ my mother!" he all but shouted. "You married my father, and then when he died, you took over this house and _shat_ on everything he ever held dear. You never loved him. You just wanted a way into Insomnia."

Tears streamed down his face and stung the open cut on his cheek, but he carried on. His whole body was shaking.

"I tried to be good and kind to you. I hoped that if I was, then you and your _awful_ daughters would change. I hoped you'd realise that there's a better way to live, but you never did. You treated me like dirt. You've never had to work a day in your life, and you refused to lift even a finger to help me while I studied at school, and tried to hold down a job at the weekends just to pay for your _stupid_ dresses and your _stupid_ parties and all your _stupid_ wine!" he stopped abruptly, and gulped. It was the longest speech he’d ever made in his life.

Noctis laid his hand on Prompto's trembling shoulder again, and the boy looked around at his friend and bit his lip.

"I'm sorry, Noct. I didn't mean to worry you. I... I didn't come to school because she locked me in after I dropped a bottle of wine and it broke, and went everywhere..."

"It wasn't just _any_ bottle of wine," she shot, as though anything she said could excuse her. "It was a bottle of 656 Tenebraen 'Oracle'."

" _Oh_ ," Noctis said sarcastically, dropping his hand from his friend's shoulder, and Prompto recognised the dangerous tone in his voice. "Oh, well, then that explains _everything_ ," he snarled. "I _mean_ , I've noticed Prompto's bruises, and how he almost never brings a lunch to school, and how he never talks about his home at all, but now I understand _completely_."

"Noct," Prompto hissed, but the prince was in full 'prince' mode. He was not going to be stopped.

Noctis shook his head. "Do you have any idea how kind this boy is?" he demanded, stepping forward and making the lady Izunia back up towards the staircase with the ferocity of his dark blue gaze. "Do you have any idea how giving, and gentle, and gods-damned _kind_ this boy is?" He pointed at Prompto behind him, who was still standing, ripped trousers soaked from the dirty water, shivering, on the other side of the hall.

"Noct, please," he whined. "Don't."

The prince shook his head again. "No, Prom. You're not staying here another minute. Go and get your things. And some gods-damned shoes. You're coming to live with me."

"But, your royal highness..." the lady Izunia faltered. She clearly had no idea how the prince knew her step-son, let alone why he would be so prepared to defend the little wretch.

"What?" Noctis barked. "How will you manage without a _slave_ to do everything for you?" He laughed a hollow laugh that reverberated around the marble hall like a curse in an empty ballroom. "You'll have to figure that one out. Maybe you can put your daughters to work. Maybe you can get _them_ to learn to cook and clean, and fetch and carry instead?"

"That's rich, coming from you," she sneered defensively.

 _Bad move_ , Prompto thought, but Noctis barely reacted. "I've lived independently from the palace for a while now," he said lightly. "I can't cook to save my life, but not for lack of trying. Yes, I'm the prince, but I go to a public school. And thank the Six I do. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have met Prompto. If my father had had me tutored in the palace, I never would have become best friends with him. Teach your daughters something _useful,_ and you never know, something amazing might just come of it."

He nodded at Prompto, who obeyed the silent command, and flew up the stairs past her to collect his few possessions.

He slid the camera into his school bag, and stuffed the photo album from his childhood in as well. As he moved it, the buckle from the shoes that Gentiana had gifted him flew off the top of it and skidded away over the floorboards. When his magic shoes had turned back into the borrowed ones from the boutique, the buckle had tinkled softly into the dirt beside him. It was like a crystallised memory of the night, and the only thing that remained of his extraordinary evening besides his memories.

Prompto scrambled to pick it up and hastily slipped it into his pocket. With a last look around the room, he scurried back downstairs, just in time to hear Noctis saying, "This house rightfully belongs to Prompto. You may continue to live here for a while, but I will see to it personally that this house and all its contents are returned _intact_ to Prompto. And that _you_ are returned to Niflheim before too long."

Prompto skidded to a halt beside the prince and, for the first time, caught sight of the figure who had remained perfectly still on the front doorstep just outside the house. His eyes widened and his fingers went weak, letting go of his bag strap. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud. "Oh gods," he hissed.

Noctis frowned and turned to stare at his shield. When he saw the expression of astonishment and horror plastered across the big man’s white face, he took half a step towards him. "Gladio? What is it? What's wrong?"

"It... It's _him_..." Gladio faltered, his voice odd and strained in his throat.

"Who's him?" Noct asked, looking back at Prompto. "Prom, what's going on?"

"U-Um.." Prompto stuttered. "Can we... can we explain this later?"

"No," Noctis said flatly.

"Cats and pumpkins…" Gladio breathed.

"What the fuck?" Noctis demanded. "What is going on?"

"Long story," Prompto said meekly. "Look, please, I want to do it justice, and I can't do it here..." His cheek was still bleeding sluggishly, and he desperately wanted to be anywhere other than standing in his wet clothes in the hallway of his father's house, with his stepmother simpering empty apologies in the background, and Gladio looking like he'd taken a lance to the chest on the front doorstep.

"Fine," Noctis blurted. "Fine, get in the car. Let's go." The prince swept from the house without another word.

Prompto picked up his bag and followed Noctis down the path, walking straight past Gladio, who stood like a monolith watching him pass by. When he reached the car, Prompto saw that Ignis was sitting in the front seat, looking curious. "Highness?" he asked, eyes locked on the prince as Noctis slid into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. "Highness, is everything alright?"

"No," the prince said flatly. "Just take us all home, will you?" Noct was brimming with a sullen anger, sparked by the injustices dealt out to his friend. Prompto could tell that part of it came from the fact that he hadn’t known. That Prompto had concealed the truth from his best friend behind his bright smiles and his beaming freckled face.

"To the palace, or your apartment?" Ignis asked gently, clearly still as perplexed as he was concerned.

"Apartment."

"Very well. Belts on, everyone." The advisor glanced over into the back seat to check that Prompto actually had his seatbelt on, and caught sight of the cut on his cheek. "Prompto!" he gasped. "You're bleeding. Here," and he handed him a soft handkerchief from his top pocket. If he noticed Prompto’s wet clothes on the Regalia’s leather seat, he didn’t comment.

"Thanks, Iggy," Prompto mumbled, taking it and pressing it into his cheek. He couldn't bear to look to his left at Gladio as the huge man slid into the seat behind Ignis. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the way his great fists were clenched into tight balls, and he could _feel_ the shield shaking and staring at him. If he had been pissed off enough to hit the prince, Prompto didn’t want to think about what he could do to a commoner like him.

The drive back to the apartment was tense. The atmosphere in the car was so thick Prompto could have cut it with a wooden spoon. He checked the handkerchief in his hand and saw that the bleeding had stopped by the time they drew up in the underground parking garage below the apartment, and he grabbed his bag and was out of the car like a whippet almost before Ignis had put it in park. He waited apprehensively for Noctis to get out as well, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Then he followed the prince inside, still without looking at Gladio at all.

Only when the door to the familiar apartment had clicked shut behind the last of them did Noctis turn around and face Prompto. His expression was gentle, but there was still a degree of princely authority there. "I want to know, Prompto," he said, looking from his friend to his shield and back again. "What was all that back there?"

Prompto inhaled. In for a gil... "Ok, so... um... the night of your eighteenth..."

"You texted me to say you were sick," Noctis said sternly. Ignis stepped half a pace closer to him, as though partly to restrain him, and partly to offer silent solidarity.

"Yeah, that wasn't quite what happened... First of all, um... do you believe in fairy godmothers?"

Noct looked bemused, and shook his head. "No, of course not."

"Well you should," Prompto said flatly. "They're real. I didn't believe until that night though. I always thought they were just some shit made up for kids. Turns out they're real, and I got a visit from one."

He swallowed, trying to ignore their looks of disbelief, and the way his trouser legs stuck to his backside and thighs uncomfortably.

"So, long story short, I actually managed to get an outfit for your ball, but when I came downstairs, they... they kinda trashed it... I was really upset and was sitting outside. I'd just texted you, when this girl comes up to the house."

He ran his hand through his blond hair and smiled at the memory of Gentiana's kindness.

"So she asked me for some food and water, and I asked her inside and let her sit by the fire. She was wearing rags, and she was filthy, and I just felt so sorry for her. Anyway, when out of nowhere she said I was running late for the ball and when she said my name, I, like, _totally_ freaked out, but she... she changed... Like, there was this flurry of snow, and she was wearing a silver dress, and her hair was all silvery, and she..." He broke off when he saw Noct's face. "It's true, I swear, but it gets weirder, so, like, just trust me... ok?"

The prince nodded warily. Gladio and Ignis exchanged looks over the prince’s head, but said nothing.

"So she picked up this pumpkin, and had me take it outside, and..." He recanted the whole, improbable story of the transformation of the vegetable, the cat, and the boy. And then, for the first time, he dared to look at Gladio. He could only manage to keep his eyes on the shield for half a heartbeat before he had to look away. "So anyway, I came really late to the ball, but I met Gladio there, and we talked, like, all evening. Walked round the gardens, danced… but I lost track of the time, and then it was all too late, and he was kissing me, but I had to go before all the magic wore off, and... I'm sorry..."

He bit his lip and looked at their eyes. Golden, blue, and green stared back at him unblinkingly.

"Guys, you gotta believe me," he pleaded.

Ignis stepped forwards and said, "Well, that's quite the tale..."

"It's true!" he began helplessly, but the advisor held up a gloved hand to silence him.

He pushed his glasses up his nose and continued. "I've read accounts of creatures who do good deeds for those whom they deem deserving. Some of those accounts do in fact call them fairy godmothers. But if the story you've told us is indeed true, answer me this: what did you leave behind when you left?"

Prompto blinked, and then he grinned.

He stuffed his hand in his soggy trouser pocket and drew out the cut-glass buckle like it was the greatest treasure in all the world. It glittered and sent shards of rainbow light dancing off the walls of Noct's living room. "I left the other one of these behind."

Gladio gasped and reached into his own pocket. When he held out his calloused palm, they all saw the matching buckle resting across it, glimmering innocently. "It _is_ you," Gladio breathed. "I can't believe how much time I spent looking for you, and you were right under my nose the whole time." He swallowed and then spoke his name with reverence, "Prompto."

Prompto shivered at the sound of it. "Yeah," he rasped. "Not such a dashing young nobleman after all... I told you it'd all be different if you knew the truth about who I was."

"You think that matters?" Gladio choked. "You think I care about the fact that you don't have fancy clothes, or a fancy title?"

All three of them turned to stare at the shield.

"I told you that night that I knew you were kind..." His gruff voice trembled as he spoke. "What I saw and heard today confirmed it. Gods, I can't believe you've suffered like that. I should have tried harder to find you, I..." He stared down at the buckle. "I wish I'd known sooner."

"Gladio," Prompto said softly, taking half a step towards him. "It's ok."

"It's not ok," he fired back, fingers clenching around the glass buckle so hard that Prompto thought it might crack and shatter. "It's never ok for someone to be treated like that, but _you_... The thought of you being abused like that..." He looked like he was either going to explode or collapse under the force of all his emotions.

Prompto’s heart lurched at the sight of him. "But it all turned out ok…” he gabbled. “I mean, I got rescued by a knight in shining armour _and_ a prince. Not many fairy tales get both…" Prompto grinned, trying to diffuse the tension. Ignis coughed tersely, and he quickly added, "And... and the prince's noble advisor!"

"I thought for a moment you were going to say 'the prince's noble chauffeur'," Ignis remarked dryly.

Noctis laughed first. Then Ignis. And then finally Gladio added his deep base. "Come here," the shield said, opening his arms to the scrawny, soggy boy in front of him.

Prompto took three strides across the room and let himself be folded up into Gladio's enormous embrace. He was warm, and solid, and real, and Prompto clung to him. "Let's start again, ok?" he asked, turning his eyes up to Gladio's face.

Gladio nodded, and Prompto was surprised to see that, even with his blurry vision, he could make out a very slight rim of tears along the long lashes which framed his sparkling, golden eyes. "Yeah," he said in a throaty whisper. Prompto's grin widened and he buried his face in his chest again, squeezing his arms around Gladio's great barrel chest, fingers clenched into the fabric of his tank top as the huge feathered arms closed around his shoulders like protective wings.

"No masks this time," Gladio added. "Just you and me, and those big blue eyes." He leaned in close and peeled Prompto's face off his chest. He lowered his scarred knuckles to Prompto’s chin and raised his face up so that he was staring straight into his eyes. He leaned down, closing the gulf between their heights, and planted a kiss right on his nose. "And all those gorgeous little freckles."

 

xxx

 

The sun that beat down on him as he lay on the grass enveloped him in its bright, hot glow. He knew he was probably going to burn, but in that moment, lying on the palace lawn in complete privacy, he couldn’t muster a single fuck. He sighed and crossed his ankles, pale arms folded behind his head.

On the verge of a sunny doze, the smell of flowers and grass in his nose, he heard footsteps approaching behind him, and half-opened one eye as an enormous figure blotted out the sun and cast a chilly shadow over him. “Hey, you,” the massive figure rumbled. “You’re gonna burn if you stay out here like that.”

“Mmm,” Prompto replied. “Too bad I don’t have someone to _shield_ me from it.”

He could practically hear the eye-roll that came from the man. “Come on,” he said. “I got something for ya.”

Prompto frowned and sat up. “For me? Why?”

Gladio’s laugh filled the air around him like a thousand buzzing bees. The shield sank down to crouch beside him and reached a hand up to the back of Prompto’s head. His strong fingers laced through the thick, blond hair, and he drew him close and planted an enormous kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

“Why?”

It was Gladio’s turn to frown. “Why to ‘I love you’? or why to ‘I got you something’?”

“Both, I guess,” he laughed, “But it was actually a why to the gift.”

“Because it’s been a year.”

“What? Holy crap,” he breathed. “Was that today?” Prompto’s heart lurched and he felt elated and excited and guilty all at once.

Gladio laughed again and kissed him, bowling him right over onto his back, knocking the wind out of him, and smothering him with his enormous body. Then he lifted his weight off Prompto in an immaculately solid plank, his iron muscles locking his frame in place above him, and he eased down in an effortlessly slow press-up to leave more kisses all over Prompto’s neck and cheeks. He lavished attention on the galaxy of freckles painted across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, leaving Prompto a panting, laughing mess after a few minutes.

“Stop, please,” he gasped, writhing and trying to worm out from underneath him. “I can’t breathe!”

Chuckling, Gladio relented and pushed himself up before rolling over. Finally standing, he held his hand out to Prompto. “Come on. It’s inside.”

Warily curious, Prompto allowed himself to be led by the hand through the cool, echoing corridors of the palace, up to Gladio’s private apartment. He traced his thumb over Gladio’s rougher, darker skin, and smiled. He could hardly believe he’d been completely happy for a solid year.

The shield pushed the door to his apartment open and held it for Prompto to walk through ahead of him. Nervously, Prompto’s eyes scanned the room, not seeing anything out of place or unusual. He turned to look over his shoulder at Gladio, who nodded at the coffee table a little to their left in front of them.

On it was a small package tied up with a yellow ribbon, and a card. Prompto crossed to it, holding his breath. He opened the card first, but Gladio’s terrible writing was a blur and he couldn’t read it properly. He sighed in exasperation and set the card back down. “I need my –” he began, but he turned to find that Gladio was already holding a pair of black-rimmed glasses out to him. “Thanks.”

The shield offered him a wide, fond, white grin, but said nothing else.

“You gonna sit?” Prompto asked as he slid them onto his face. “You’re making me nervous, lurking like that.”

Silently, Gladio nodded slowly and sank into the sofa beside him, keeping a gentle distance while Prompto read the card.

_Dearest Prompto,_

_I’m not very good with words, as you know. It’s been a year now, and I’ve never been happier. I wanted to get you something to remind you of the night we first met, and to let you know how much I love you, exactly as you are. Thank you for making me the happiest man alive with your smiles and your support._

_All my love, always,_

_Gladiolus. x_

Tears brimmed hot in Prompto’s eyes as he saw Gladio’s full name at the bottom of the card, and he turned to look at him, lip trembling. “I love you too,” he breathed before launching himself into Gladio’s arms.

The shield hadn’t been expecting it, clearly, and he grunted in surprise as the small, golden cannonball collided with his chest. Laughing, he wrapped his arms around him and blushed, muttering, “It’s just a card, Prom…”

Prompto shook his head, but didn’t speak. Whether that was because he had his face smashed up against Gladio’s pecs or because be was too emotional, the shield wasn’t sure, so he just held him.

Eventually Prompto calmed down, and cleared his throat. His glasses were wonky and smudged, and he drew them off his face to clean them on his shirt. Gladio ‘tsked’ and said, “That’s what I got you that chocobo lens cloth for.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He slid them back onto his face and turned to the present. It was too heavy and too big to be a ring box, so he was able to calm his shaking hands down a little bit, but as he tugged on the ribbon and set it aside, he couldn’t help casting a quick look up at Gladio’s face.

He was smiling softly, adoringly, his gold eyes burning intently.

Nibbling his lip, Prompto undid the paper and opened the plain box. Inside rested a small ornament. It was cut glass, and it sent shards of light dancing round the room from the sunshine flooding in from the window. At first, Prompto thought it was Gladio’s buckle, the one that he had kept, but, looking closer, he saw that it wasn’t.

Trying not to shake, Prompto drew it out and stared, wide-eyed, at it before an enormous grin split his face and he turned back to Gladio. “A chocobo!” he gushed. “A little glass chocobo! I love it! It’s perfect!”

Gladio rumbled a fond laugh. “Just like you,” he said, ruffling his feathery, golden hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks guys, that's it for this story, but I have still got my omega verse one that's turning into a bit of a monster. For those who liked Prompto going through the ringer (who doesn't love a bit of Promptio hurt/comfort?), that might be for you. Dunno. There's also my series of older Ignis x Gladio which I might update with one-shots soon... I may also be working on a merman/sharkman story, but I don't know if that'll go up here...  
> Anyway, thanks for swinging by and reading my Cinderella AU story, and for inspiring me to write it and rework bits of it for you!


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